Indigo Junction
by javajive
Summary: Post S5 - There is a rumour she might have ended up in Bali. He doesn't know if he will find her there or if he even wants to... - rated for swearing and some mature content - COMPLETE
1. Another island

_Just an idea of post S5 - There are rumors she might be in Bali. And although he doesn't know whether he will find her or if he really wants to - he looks her up. _

_Rated M: for language and sexual content_

_Disclaimer: Not mine –not mine._

...

**Indigo juncture – Another island**

**...**

_What the hell made her choose this place?_

If she'd wanted to be stuck on an island – she should just have stayed where they were.

His stride is hurried and fretful, setting him apart from the droves of tourists sauntering by. Their faces lobster red, shoulder's burned crimson and their clothes pseudo local, gaudy batiks and hibiscus patterned sarongs tied across hefty hips. He is sorely out of place here, in his jeans and long sleeved, washed out teal coloured shirt, dragging a small black duffel bag.

_What if she's not here? _

He might be wrong. He'd spent the better part of the last six months trying to track her down. Unable to explain the obsession, the 'have to' that had driven him. He told him self, he'd just check in on her. See that she was alright and then he'd leave it be. Get on with his life. Start living again.

_Right now; he has deep doubts about his own sanity._

Hell – she might not even want to see him. And truth is; he's not even sure he wants to see her again. Drag all those feelings up again. It's ludicrous to say the least, to go looking for something that might not have been anything to start with. But he's got to know.

It's early evening and the narrow cemented beach-path is overblown by sand – large porous grains of sand. It crunches under the soles of his heavy work shoes as he struggles onwards. He has to walk fast.

_Or else he'll lose his nerve. _

There is some kind of religious ceremony going on ahead of him, at the edge of the waterfront. A large crowd of locals have gathered, a solid mass of white and yellow, colorful offerings piled impossibly high on the heads of the women. The men with their white head-wraps and the women's hair arranged in a sloppy elegance. Little rice grains stuck to their temples, white little yellow hearted frangipani flowers casually tucked behind ears of male and female alike. He stops to watch as they put down their incense sticks and offerings near the water. A timeless dignity and grace unperturbed by the tackiness of tourists gawking. The sea, an eerily calm lapis lazuli blue - stained by the gold and ruby strokes of the dying sun.

The evening breeze on his face, like a caress. He feels it now – once he has stopped. He closes his eyes for just a moment, turning his face towards the sea. The sound of the gamelan audible in the background - and he lets the balmy air smooth out the tense lines across his face. He is sure now.

_Yes. She'd be here._

_Of course she would have chosen this place._

She'd never completely leave the island here.

He passes the row of resorts and little seaside restaurants, people sitting with their chairs sunk into the sand, sipping bear and eating food with their hands. Local hawkers trying to push their merchandise. The smiles that meet him, everywhere. He is not used to it. White against soft caramel skin, black friendly eyes that follow him as he trudges on.

"Lookie lookie mister. Look at my shop yes!" their standard invite to the clumsy westerners lumbering along in their too short shorts, their too revealing tops. He has to smile back, at the brazenness of the graceful little Balinese vendors. Giggling at him, some of them flirting in that peculiarly innocent manner - equal measures of tease and curiosity.

_Yes. He can see her here. She'd fit right in._

* * *

Juliet. He'd been back to see Juliet first. Scared to death that what Jack had done would have been the end.

And it was the end – at least of them - together.

He'd found her in Miami, living with Goodwin of all people. He didn't understand how the fuck all that had worked out, but it seemed that to some extent Jacks manic idea had worked. Not for himself for sure, but Goodwin was a lucky bastard if he'd ever seen one. Time had somehow been reset and canceled out the events leading to Juliet and Goodwin ending up on the island. How on earth they'd still met up, he couldn't fathom, but playing house with Juliet definitely must trump being dead and buried in some godforsaken dirt heap out in the middle of nowhere. _Lucky bastard._

He'd followed them as they exited their little house. He'd sat in his rental car parked across the street and watched the two of them. They'd been laughing, shoving at each other, jokingly. Before Goodwin opened the car door for her, he'd leaned forward and nipped at her nose. He'd not been able to breathe properly watching them. He'd grasped a paper bag off the dashboard and hyperventilated in it. It had happened a lot since he got back - the strange anxiety attacks getting the best of him. When Goodwin had steered the car out in the driving lane, Juliet had looked up and for a millisecond met his eyes. Eyes of a stranger – void of recognition. And as he drove away, feeling his heart break for the millionth time, he'd wondered if it might have been easier to get over her - had she'd died for real. And then the guilt for even thinking that and he had bit down hard on his own tongue until he could taste blood.

Before he'd left Miami, he'd called her number, heard her voice and hung up. He'd kept thinking that she'd seemed happy there outside her little house – without him -and maybe that was the best one could hope for. He had left it at that and found that as time passed, it didn't hurt so much. The circumstances that had brought them together weren't there anymore. And she was happy. He'd reminded himself that this was all that mattered.

So he'd pulled a few short cons, just to get back in the game, raise some cash. But with no real aim in sight. Then by chance, he'd run into Hurley in LA. They'd shared a beer and talked about all the others. Her name had come up and that's when it had started. Hurley's only information had been that she might be in Australia or Indonesia.

It was by pure chance that he'd gotten the latest information of her whereabouts. He'd picked it up from a few bragging backpackers in a bar that had taught English for a while, making a few extra bucks during their stay in Bali. He'd had a bit too much to drink himself and wasn't entirely sure how they'd gotten on to the topic. But here he is.

_And he has no idea why._

* * *

He walks far. But the light wind from the sea is cooler now and the scent of frangipani and burning incense rouses something deep within. A memory so strong it makes his gut hurt. A memory of sand sticking to sweaty skin, lips that he could never hold on to. Never could convince to stay. Her legs wrapped around him, for a short frenzied moment, then the running, getting away from him.

_She must be here. She must be._

He's waited so long.

He has walked past the upmarket hotels with their uniformed guards, the budget ones a little worse for wear The young people hanging at bars with their surfing gear piled besides them and the older couples with their colorful drinks and cheap sunglasses pushed up on top of their heads. A little temple squeezed in between hotels and a quaint local seaside market. He stops there, fishes in his pocket, lifting up the edge of his light blue cotton shirt as he does. His hair blows into his eyes and he pushes it back, impatiently eyeing the little paper slip with the address on. He shows it to an old man selling drinks from a bucket of ice. The man gives him a toothless grin and beckons him further, saying something he can't understand. The women around him titter and one of them, a middle-aged strangely tall woman snaps at the scrap of paper. She passes it around to the others and their twittering laughter grows. They look at him and shake their heads. The skinny one saying to her friends:

"Ibu guru, - bu guru…"

He realizes that they are probably amusing themselves at his expense - but he lets them have it. He flashes them a wide goofy smile and they almost split their sides laughing at him. Glimmering, clever black eyes, narrowing into half-moon slits, hands covering mouths in faux modesty. A young girl takes courage and throws out in her loud heavily accented English:

"Mister, mister. We take you!"

Ordinarily he'd not have minded being "taken" by a young thing like that, but now he can't think of a single thing to say. No witty retorts, no charming replies. He is scared out of his mind and he is man enough to admit it. He's come so far. Too far.

What if she is not here? What if she doesn't want to see him?

Even more terrifying – _what if she does? _

The quick-footed little slip of a thing and her plump friend seize him by his shirt sleeve and pull him towards a narrow alleyway off the beach-walk. The passageway is dark and uneven and he stumbles along with only the snickering young girls leading the way. He realizes that it might be stupid to just let them lead him off like this. But he can't stop. Can't turn around.

_What if she is here?_

They stop suddenly in front of an ornate wooden gate set in a high plain cement wall. He sees the white of their eyes glimmer in the faint light, the shadow of their silhouettes as they nod towards the door.

"Mister," is all the little tubby one says and then they leave him there in a rustle of fabric, their laughter tinkling as they run towards the beach.

Crap. He has no idea what this place is. He just stands there. To knock or not to knock? His fingertips rest on the door in the darkness.

_Hell – he must be out of his fucking mind._

He knocks hard on the door, using the round wrought iron handle.

...

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	2. Another house

_Thanks so much for the reviews! Hope you enjoy what follows._

_Disclaimer: None of it is mine. None of it._

* * *

**Indigo junction – Another house**

* * *

The knock seems to echo off the bare cement walls of the narrow alleyway. For a millisecond he thinks of taking flight, of running after the girls down the dark passage towards safety. Towards the beach. Away from here.

_Shouldn't be here._

He hears someone's footstep approaching. The gate flies open with a dull hollow thump, both doors hurled outwards at once as he hears a familiar voice. It all seems wrong.

" What the….?"

After all that effort spent psyching himself up - he just stands there like a dumb fool - holding on to his duffel bag for dear life.

_Not her._

"Hurley….?" He says tentatively, not able to wrap his mind around it. "Hoss?"

All this fucking time wasted and he'd ended up right where he started - with Hugo Reyes.

Hurley is frozen in his spot for an instant before springing himself onto Sawyer, almost drowning him in the rough embrace. Heavy slaps on the back that have Sawyer coughing.

"Dude! Wow - what are you doing here?! Wow, man – wow, this is so like…. I can't believe it!"

Hurley pulls them apart, grabbing onto Sawyers shoulders. He is dressed in a crisp white shirt hanging loosely outside khaki coloured trousers. Sawyer shakes his head in an effort to get the words out. He focuses on the little turquoise stone in a string around Hurley's wide neck. _He looks good_. Still a corpulent man but he looks like he has lost a pound or two. His hair neatly tied back, the bushy sideburns are gone and his brown cocker spaniel eyes are shining like it is Christmas.

"Dude." Hurley says one more time for effect - eloquently putting into words what Sawyer can't. He looks ridiculously pleased to see him and it almost makes Sawyer feel bad for his own stunned disappointment.

"What, what,…. what the heck are _**you**_ doing here?" He doesn't quite know if the emptiness he feels is frustration or relief.

Hurley throws his arms out wide, the expanse of the white fabric of his cotton shirt making him look like a pretty good imitation of that Jesus figure in Rio. Backlit by the garden lamps, spots placed low among the lavish bushes and shrubs visible behind him.

"What am _**I**_ doing here? I _**live**_ here man – this is my house. But…you must know that right?.. I mean, you must know otherwise…. why else would you...?"

"I, well….No hell no, I didn't know you were here!" he blurts out. He has completely lost his cool. He's waited so long. Looked all over the whole freaking orient only to end up at Jabba's little hut. "But it's good to see you. You're looking good Hurley, really dapper."

He grins at him in an effort to loosen up his own nerves. Hurley's eyebrows shoot up, and Sawyer can literally _see_ the pieces falling into the slots. Much can be said about Hugo, but he ain't all that dumb.

"Oh, right – right. I see." he says and Sawyer can tell he is uncomfortable. "You're looking for _**her**_?" Hurley biting his bottom lip, eyes shifty and uneasy - it isn't a good sign.

Without another word Hurley beckons to him to follow and shuts the gate quietly behind them. Not bothering bolting he notices. _Hey, island life must be pretty idyllic._

The garden is gorgeous – even Sawyer can see that and he doesn't know the first thing about gardens.

All lush tropical plants and just the right amount of man's hand applied to nature's own superb design. The house itself is small and built in a traditional style, a steep high square roof, little coarse sienna-red brick walls and the typical gray stone framing doors and windows. It has a veranda-like area in the front, a netlike cream-coloured fabric hanging from its pillars – like a tropical dream. Hurley makes him sit down on the little terrace, the furniture; an old simple hardwood daybed, two small armchairs and little carved wooden chest in place of a table.

Hurley bustles in to the house, seeming far too big for the dainty little doorway but strangely at home here. At peace. Sawyer can see how he'd like this place. The roof is simple mud tiles on a wooden frame. He leans his head back and idly watches the little skittish house lizards busy themselves on the upper wall, catching the throws of mosquitoes that the evening brings. He can smell smoke, someone grilling fish nearby and the saltiness of the breeze from the sea even here inside the high garden walls. He takes a deep breath and starts to relax, feeling his nerves unclenching their grip on him.

Hurley returns carrying a little bamboo tray with two tall glasses of what seems to be ice tea. Ice clinking, condensation gathering on the outside as cold meets warm evening air. Hurley closes the carved wooden door to the house, pushing at it's red and gold surface gently, carefully. Like someone is in there. Someone he doesn't want to disturb. Maybe a lady friend, Sawyer reflects – just from the tender way he closes the door.

"Nice little cabana you've got yourself big guy!" he says as he looks around. "Sure beats the old heap of tarp."

The sound of frogs somewhere close, maybe a little pond nearby. Gray roughly cut stone-slabs mark the pathway towards the gate and the frangipani trees seem to bow under the weight and bounty of their sweet-scented white flowers. Beautifully carved stone statues, overgrown with velvety moss, guard the entrance to the house.

"Nah, it's just a little place. Nothings special, but I like it – feels homey." Hurley looks delighted over the offhanded compliment but eyes the glass in his hand stubbornly, swirling the ice around. "So… you came…huh?"

"Guess so – so how come you're here buddy-boy? Thought you were back in LA, running your little Reyes Empire?"

"Oh this…" Hurley smiles and leans forward, suddenly fizzling with a contagious enthusiasm. "I decided to bring the business out East. I've bought a few properties and just opened up my first resort, right here, few minutes down the beach. You might have passed it on your way here. It's a really neat place, nothing big but we're going for quality."

Sawyer has no doubt that they are talking something extraordinary here. It's won't be no little quirky bed and breakfast - that's for sure.

"Sounds like you've done good pal. Not tired of hanging out on a tropical island yet?"

"Naw, it's not too bad." Hurley wrinkles up his whole face making Sawyer almost want to kiss him. He looks so happy. _At least someone is happy._ "The Emporium. I'll show it to you tomorrow. You can tag along if you want, be my sidekick. Give the staff ridiculous nicknames that no one will understand – it'll be a blast."

"It'd be my pleasure." He says and he finds that it is nothing but the truth. Realizes that he hasn't felt this good, this relaxed, this at peace in a long time. Must be something about the air here. The salt and honey and spice drifting by like the remnants of angels passing. "So tea huh Hurley? Got something stronger to celebrate with?"

"Might have dude. Might have…depends on what we're celebrating."

"My new employment as your goon…That'd do it, it'd be reason enough right?"

Hurley chuckles at that and hoists himself up with the aid of his hands on the armrests. He is back in a flash with a large frosty bottle of vodka held by its neck.

"Take a look at that - now we're talking!" Sawyer exclaims as he watches Hurley pour a generous amount into his half empty tea glass and a little into his own.

"So I bought this resort – and we've just opened, lots of Europeans and lots of Russian guests. Making all my staff take Russian classes now – tried myself but dude, I feel I haven't even mastered English yet you know…. "

"Ha, yeah, it's a bitch…" Sawyer leans back, cocking his head to the side and studies Hurley. _Content_. It's an unusual sensation. He can't remember the last time he felt like this. Maybe he doesn't have to find her.

_Maybe he shouldn't._

"So Hurley, you mind if I stick around for a while? Ain't got the faintest idea what I'm doing next – but I'd sure like to help you out with whatever, if you don't mind that is? I'll wash dishes or be a bellhop, whatever. I don't mind."

At first he is afraid that he's been too forward. Maybe expected too much from a friendship, that, lets face it is just based on a shared random experience of something horrific. This is insane. Him - just inviting himself in like that. He must look really needy. Hurley looks away and opens his mouth several times before anything comes out and Sawyer wants to just kick himself, hard.

"Sure thing dude! I'll fix you up, no problem." Hurley smiles broadly to make up for the short moment of awkwardness, to back up his invitation. "Stay as long as you like! I'll make sure you make yourself useful around the business. But no conning the handbags off old rich Russian ladies ok?! We've just got to find you something else to keep you busy."

Sawyer exhales with Hurley's smooth effort in diffusing the tension. It was a spur of a moment thing but now he finds that he'd really like to stay.

"Sure – I'll try to find another hobby." They raise their glasses and Sawyer takes a liberal mouthful while Hurley just sips pensively, watching him for a moment. An unfamiliar vertical wrinkle between the eyes. He weighs the glass in both of his hands and stares straight into Sawyer's face – frankly making him worry that Hurley will take back his generous offer.

"Dude – are you gonna' come out and ask it or are we gonna' sit here all night?" A remarkably annoyed tone that Sawyer doesn't quite remember from before.

"Lay off it Hurley." He says fishing up his pack of smoke, from the frayed jeans pocket. It's some local clove stuff that smells sweet and spicy – no filter. He shakes one out and lets it dangle in his mouth, unlit. He pretends to be really caught up by two lizards squabbling on the wall above Hurley's head, scratching at the stubble on his chin. The cigarette is curiously sweet against his lips, like it was dipped in honey.

"'Cause I'll play along, I'll do it. If you want me too - but we both know you're dying to ask – so just do it alright!"

"Cut it out." He tries to make it all into one big joke, mock-frowning at Hurley who looks strangely exasperated. Peeved.

_Doesn't want to go there._

"You ask me all about her; where you can find her and what I know – then - not a word for ages until you show up here, on my doorstep – in _**B-a-l-i**_. Don't think this is a funky coincidence…dude." The _'dude'_ sounds like an insult.

"Yeah, yeah." He looks down sheepishly at his feet, the dusty, brown leather workshoes. " Alright, alright – I _**am **_looking for her – still am. Though fuck knows why. And I thought I'd find her here. So there you are! Pathetic enough for you - or ya' want more do ya'?!"

"No. You could have spread it on thicker."

He glances up at Hurley's face, a sly little half smile, soft in the mellow porch light.

"Aw, fuck it. Hurley. Have you heard anything?..." it comes out gruffer than he had intended. Thinking he'd found her, that she'd be here – instead ending up drinking tea with Hugo Reyes, real estate tycoon. He can't help it – no matter how good this is, sitting here with Hurley, he had come for something else. He'd been looking something different altogether, maybe resolution, perhaps some sort of ending.

_A chance to ask her why._

"Just leave her be Sawyer, I really think it'd be for the best."

"I should leave her be?... So she's here?"

"I just don't get what you want with her. I mean, it was pretty much you and Juliet right? Hasn't been _**her**_ for a long time. Wouldn't it be better to just…leave it be?"

"Well Buddha, ain't you the wise one!? " The sting at the mention of Juliet's name. He brings out his lighter and fires up the cigarette, sucking in the smoke greedily. Holding it like a joint between thumb and index finger.

"No, I mean, what's the point? You guys are through right?"

"Hell yes! Are you kidding!? We never _where_ anything."

At this Hurley demonstratively rolls his eyes, puffing out his cheeks at the huge load of bullshit they both know this to be.

"So what is it? You got some beef with her or what? – I mean, we all came back – me included. You know it wasn't really her fault - she didn't even want to come, not really. You might as well be pissed off at me…or Jack…"

"Trust me buddy, I _**am **_pissed at him. No beef with her though Bubba, just checking in on her, see how doc's brilliant plan is working out for her." Though as he says it, he realizes that he does blame her – that he _**is**_ bitter at her too. She was the trigger, the strange inane eye of the storm.

"So who else have you been looking up?" Hurley snaps back, quicker than a cobra. He doesn't miss a trick that one. _It's really annoying._

"Ah, yeah, you for starters…Jules….and.."

"Don't lie about it man. - That's just plain insulting." Hurley says with an edge to his voice that takes Sawyer by surprise. He doesn't know this man - this pulled together, collected man, his thick curly hair slicked back in glossy auburn waves. He still sees the chubby, sweaty guy from the island that couldn't keep his fingers off the Dharma dressing and he can't make sense of this person in front of him. "Besides - you run into me by chance - you didn't look me up! What about Juliet - did she…?"

"Nope, didn't know me from Dick or Harry. Just like you said." He says with a feigned bravado though it still makes him want to kill someone, hurl his glass at the wall at the very least.

"Yeah. I sent a guy to find Charlie. The same thing."

"You don't say? Well how the hell is the little nipper?!" The thought of a living breathing Charlie cheers him immensely. Something good came out of all that crap.

"So, so – not excellent. The dude has a problem with the stuff still. Did nothing to change that. But hey - better than being dead right?"

"Oh. Right. Who else – you sent your guy after anyone else?"

"Sayid, same thing – no memory of it all. Figure the wounds must have been too severe – he must have…"

"What about the doc?"

_Tell me he is dead. Tell me the bastard died by some freak accident. _

"No I haven't met him, but Ben looked_** me **_up. Back in LA."

"The little rat, what the hell does he want now?! No. Don't even tell me; he wants us all to get our asses back to that hellhole, right? Play another round of games with him right?"

"Something like that…"

"So, that's why you're hiding out here?"

"I'm _not_ hiding," Hurley says miffed, hinting at an inexplicable injured pride. "He wants to find me, he will." He mumbles the last.

"Bet that Jackass is on board already, wants to change everything back _again_." It's meant as a joke but it falls flat on Hurley who just looks uneasy. He sits silently, sucking in his lips.

"You know right, where she….?" Sawyer tries again, and though he doesn't feel like smiling, he fires of his trademark easy-going smirk. Hurley nods grudgingly and gets up, putting down his glass with a surprisingly loud bang.

"You can stay here Sawyer; there is a guest room you can use. But,…don't…"

"Thanks buddy, I appreciate it. Won't get you in trouble ok." Shit. He can't ask about her again. He has reached the limit of self degradation. At least for tonight, and he'll get it out of him soon enough.

A faint cry resounds from within the house. A baby. It doesn't make sense. Hurley – and a baby. In a house. He's made fast work of it if that's _his_.

His friend hurries inside and he can hear him talking from within, a soft, affectionate voice, not quite baby talk but damn close. He comes out through the door, ducking slightly below the low frame. A little plump infant held against his shoulder, his big hand cradling its little frail neck, all pink skin and wisps of light fuzzy hair. The baby rubs at its own face, angrily, with tight little fists, squeaking like a kitten and bobbing its head against Hurley's shoulder.

"Well kiss me Rosie!" Sawyer has to laugh. He'd recognize that baby anytime, anywhere. The freakish nature of their experience – too weird to even reflect upon – makes it hard to logically process what his heart already knows.

_Aaron._

"Babysitting." Hugo says as his sole explanation while rocking the little thing in his sizeable arms. As if it was the most natural thing in the world.

And just as Sawyer's brain takes a leap to try to digest it all, phrase the million questions that seem to pop up in his mind, there is a loud thud from across the garden as the gate doors are pulled open. Girlish giggling and he thinks for a second that it is the girls that showed him the way to the little alley.

A blond and a dark head. Claire. And her.

_An indigo blue dress._

Laughing. Not a care in the world -like she has forgotten – forgotten how she helped fuck up his life.

He finds it hard to breathe. Their laughter - suffocating him – he gasps in the warm humid onslaught of the fragrant, blossoming garden. Feeling acutely how the night enfolds him - he struggles for air. He wants, no; _needs,_ a paper bag, wishing he'd brought one along. He should be used to this by now.

_The unexpected anger surging, swilling inside like hot oil. _

* * *

_Note: Wanted to write a Hurley that wasn't just a big joke (as opposed to how I write him for my other fic) – and avoid the freaked out mental patient-Hurley too - instead portraying him as a leader of sorts that people turn too rather than just a jolly sidekick. Don't know if it turned out too out of character – whaddaya' think?_

_Please leave a review if you enjoyed it._


	3. Another kitchen

_Thanks so much for the reviews!_

* * *

_Disclaimer: None of it is mine. None of it._

* * *

**Indigo junction – Another kitchen**

* * *

They breeze in, all girlish sundresses and strappy espadrilles, each carrying a couple of brown paper parcels tied together with string. A whiff of sun and vanilla sweeps in with them as they take the small steps up on the terrace.

All of a sudden she is there, just standing with her feet awkwardly wide apart, her arms limp by her sides. Her cheeks are glowing and her hair is wild, like she's just gotten out of bed. Dark viridian green eyes that flashes as she takes him in. And then her face is suddenly sickly, drained of colour, her freckles appearing in sharp contrast against the white. For a fleeting moment he imagines she might faint, like some character out of a Victorian romance novel.

_Damn. How the hell had he though she'd react? _

That they'd share big warm hug - after all the fucked-up things that have happened.

He has forgotten what made him come here; maybe it's just a blind knee-jerk reaction – nothing more. That is what he does; he searches her out. Never has _she_ come after him. Well, except_ that one time _- when he didn't want her to come. When he'd just about managed to rid himself of the longing, the inane, primitive obsession. When he'd finally found some kind of equilibrium.

"Look who dropped by! Claire meet James Ford, James this is Claire, Kate's sister! "

Hurley does his best to salvage the situation. Some twitchy, nervous waving left and right with his free hand as he does the introductions. Sawyer gets up from his chair.

He is numb. - _An embarrassment to conmen across the world._

"Hello James. It's….it's good to see you again." Kate. The hostility of her green eyes

and the sharpness of her tone warns him to play along.

He is so taken aback by the 'sister' addendum that he very nearly misses _it_. Almost misses the only thing betraying her shock at finding him here. Her fingers that reach up to touch her brow - the slight, practically unnoticeable tremble. A flicker of something in her face – he can't tell what. Never could tell with her.

He just nods - simply because he can't make himself do anything else. He doesn't know which one is the greater jolt, seeing _her_ again or finding Claire here – alive - with her son.

She looks tanned beside Kate, her blond hair tied back from her face, wearing a simple willow green cotton dress. She looks ridiculously alive and healthy and it's all he can do not to reach out and assault her with a Hurley-like hug. He touches the brim of an imaginary hat in way of salute instead. Trying to quell the wave of affection bubbling up._ He is nothing but a stranger to her. _She doesn't remember. Like all of the other ones. She must think he is some kind of scary freak the way he grins at her like she is the world's eighth wonder.

But she is as gracious and sweet as he remembers her and she responds with an open friendly smile before she takes her little boy from Hurley, exchanging it with one of the brown paper wraps.

"Thanks for doing this again Hurley, it was really great to get out – and that's the _babi guling – _the best Denpasar has to offer." She adjusts the weight of the little boy in her hold, caressing the plump naked baby-arm sticking out of the sleeveless onesie.

"Oh goody!" Hurley says with a large expectant smile - finally merging with the man Sawyer remembers from the island. He gets up and tucks his shirt down, smoothing it out over his trousers with his free hand.

Kate dumps her paper bundles on the little wooden chest and stands up, hands on hips, giving him a detached once-over. The dark waves of her hair falling over her shoulders, longer than he's ever seen it. A few unruly strands snaking their way down her front. She shakes it back in a defiant gesture. Sticks her chin out and he knows in that instant that she is trying to play it cool, pretending to be completely unperturbed by his presence. It makes him strangely pleased to see her trying so hard.

"So, I'm off home, to feast on this, " Hurley says, seemingly in a hurry to get away.

"I'll see you all tomorrow! James, Kate will bring you by tomorrow and I'll give you a tour of the property. Put you to work!"

"Not staying big guy? Thought this was your caboose?"

"It is – Kate and Claire are my lodgers. I live down at the Emporium."

"What? He's staying here?" Kate blurts out and Sawyer can tell that she regrets it as soon as it's out. A momentary lapse in maintaining her coolly controlled surface. The satisfaction he feels as the cracks appears_ - _pathetic_. _Claire studies the exchange, blankly, quietly sizing up the situation. She knows she is missing something - something crucial.

"Yeah, sure – he'll stay here. No problem right?" Hurley cheerfully bundles down the pathway towards the gate. "Goodnight guys! Be good – and see you all in the morning after breakfast!"

Kate goes after and bolts the gate shut behind him, while Sawyer snatches the opportunity to turn to Claire.

"So Claire, you Kate's little sis huh? - Funny, she never mentioned any siblings?"

Kate is back in a flash, not one to miss a trick, she knows immediately what he's up to. She sidles up right next to Claire and cuts in:

"Half sisters, same father. And we only just found out recently."

Flustered - a protective arm draped around her _'sister's'_ back. He's clearly getting a rise out of her – and he can't help it - there is a certain gratification in watching her get all stirred up. Her trying to keep herself on an even keel.

"Oh really?... Which father would that be?" Gleefully faked ignorance directed at Claire, paying no mind whatsoever to Kate's fixed stare. Her teeth clearly visible between her lips, and he can almost hear the gnashing as she grinds them. _Ha. This is gonna' be a good one. Come on girl!…_

"Shepherd, Christian Shepherd – my mom had a relationship with him and so did Kate's. He just passed away half a year ago or so – and that's when Kate finally managed to track me down." Claire buries her nose in her son's fuzzy head, seemingly smiling to herself.

_Shit._ Kate's really gotten away with it! What he hadn't dared try with Juliet, she'd pulled off with Claire. Conned a person into believing that they had some kind of connection and re-established it in _this_ world. _It just plain pisses him off._

"I see, so these are the elusive Shepherd girls huh? Imagine that! No other siblings? Just the two of you? " He baits her, awaiting a snappy retort. But none is forthcoming. Kate just glowers at him, fists clenching and he flashes her a smile, content to have driven her this far up the wall.

"The only siblings that we know of – yes." Claire says "And you guys, how do you all know each other."

" That story is a tad too saucy for civilized company – and junior's ears here." Sawyer smirks, indicating the infant who stirs in Claire's arms, kicking up his little pudgy legs. Quick as a flash, Kate pokes her tongue out at him behind Claire's back, just enough so that a hint of pink is visible between her lips. He raises his brows in a faux- innocent _'What?- What did I say _?'.But honestly, the little childish gesture makes him lighthearted.

"I should try to tuck him in. - James – was really nice to meet you!" Claire says and retires into the house. Without another word, Kate follows her 'sister' inside – just leaving Sawyer there, and he imagines that this will probably be the extent of the hospitality offered tonight. But its warm and pleasant out here, the daybed is soft enough and he can draw the curtains down around it.

He pulls out another cigarette and sits back to enjoy it, the sweet tobacco smoke lingering in the air. He ends up poking nosily in one of the brown paper wraps left behind on the table. It smells good. Fried rice and vegetables and some kind of meat, garlic and spices. He takes some in his fingers and tries it. Hadn't realized he was this hungry. He considers eating it all. But perhaps she'll come back out – if only to pick up her food. _Surely she won't just leave him like this?_ On the porch. But then again – stranger things have happened. And he has probably annoyed her enough to make way for this possibility.

He thinks of Juliet. How the pieces had just seemed to fit. How easily they had fallen into some kind of harmony. _Not like this. Not like with her. _Kate is an ungainly, mismatched piece. And you can try to file down the corners, wear her down, hack away at the jagged edges, push as hard as you can - but you can never, never make her fit. It's infuriating –exhausting– exhilarating.

The sounds of the night surrounds him in the garden - the creatures rattling, buzzing, creaking in the darkness. It reminds him of the island, of the life on the beach. And then somewhere from far away, he hears music mixing with the insects' noisy serenade. Not the local metallic _ting-tong-ting_ . It sounds like jazz. He stubs out his cigarette butt on the floor and leans back, stretching out on the daybed. Arms crossed behind his head and smoke pack still in his hand. He lets his eyelids fall shut and nods off, the jetlag catching up with him.

_Bang._

The door is ripped open. It flies outwards, bouncing back against the wall.

Without warning she is back. Flying out of the house- like she has a bone to pick with him. She marches straight up to where he's sitting. Stops right in front of him, her bare knees are not far from touching his jean clad ones. She glares irately down at him. He remembers that look. And for a second he almost thinks she might kiss him.

_It thrills him nearly as much as it scares him._

And then just like the young girls at the beach, she grabs his sleeve with her one hand, practically yanking him up into a standing position. In his surprise, he loses the grip on his cigarette pack, dropping it on the floor. He manages to snatch up the paper bundles instead before she pulls him towards the entrance. The door obviously fashioned for a midget forces him into an oddly humbling stoop to enter. She slams it shut behind him and locks it in a one-handed agile move.

_What does she think she's doing?_

But hell, he ain't that high and mighty. He's been up the moral high ground - and the view up there wasn't _all that_.

_If she's wanna' jump his bones – he ain't gonna stop her. Hell no._

He still doesn't understand it. _The offbeat magnetism of her_. Like turning two alike magnetic poles _against_ each other and finding that irresistible urge to press them together. In spite of the impossibility of it. Feeling the repulsive force between them like a smooth physical mass. The poles can dance around each other, but they can never meet.

Her hand on his shirt sleeve - the heat from her finger. He swears they vibrate against his skin. She releases him unexpectedly – nearly making him lose his balance. Nods at his shoes. He gets the hint and bends down sheepishly to untie them. A little cascade of sand falls out as he pulls them off his feet. He's been on a long distance flight and he knows that he must smell pretty pungent.

He looks around. The house is simple and plain inside, white washed walls and old fashioned oil lamps hung high. The wooden beams and the clay tiles of the roof visible high above, with no inner ceiling in between. There is a fairly large open area, making up one big living room space right inside the door. It is sparsely furnished with the same kind of antique looking hardwood stuff as on the terrace. There are four doors and an open archway spread around the walls of living room. She walks on towards one of the doors at the back.

He watches her in a daze from his crouched down position. How the edge of the blue dress skims her smooth legs as she crosses the stone paved floor, padding softly on naked feet, hardly making a sound. He hesitates for a fraction of time and then gets up to follow her.

* * *

He doesn't know what he'd expected. That she'd lead him straight to her bed? _Devour him? _Just like that? _Ha. _He is seriously delusional.

They are in a pokey little kitchen, barely enough space to turn around in. She is pulling out drawers, taking out cutlery and paper napkins. Looks like there will at least be dinner tonight.

_Another kitchen. Another time._

Only, now the roles are switched. There is nothing that she needs that he can give her. No Locke to fool, no Miles held prisoner in a shed. No Ben. All that -a lifetime ago.

"So sisterhood of travelling pants huh? – Playing house with Claire…. Didn't take you for the homemaker type sweet-cheeks. I guess with the right woman an' all…"

"Yeah, you would know all about that, wouldn't you?" She stops what she's doing, both hands resting on the counter top, her shoulders tensing up. Ready to defend herself.

"_Ouch._ – That's a little below the belt honey…. But this Christian Shepherd….now – _why_ does that sound familiar?"

"Just leave it alone James." She opens one of the kitchen cabinets and reaches up. Her bare arms almost iridescent in the harsh neon light. The ends of her hair skimming the small of her back making him want to throw her against the counter.

_It's just lust_, he tells himself. _Nothing more, nothing less._

"So that would make you what now? – Old Jacko's little sister? – Huh, imagine that! You know it's illegal in most places right,… too close family bonds and all…?"

How easy it is to fall back into the teasing. He wants to irk her, get on her nerves, and get her to strike back. He has always enjoyed this – their little dance. He pushes his hair back from his forehead, broadens his stance. Takes up some more space.

"I really don't see how that's any of your business."

"Aha,…nope I guess you wouldn't . But hey… you know who's business it might be? Jacky-boy's is what I reckon –. Doesn't even know does he? How the fabulous Shepherd bloodline has magically grown an extra branch?"

She shakes her head. An exaggerated shake that makes her tangled waves fly across her face. It riles him – he doesn't know why. Maybe it's the though of her snaking herself in impersonating Jack's family – or the simple fact that it is Jack's family she has infiltrated. It makes him want to grab on to that hair and yank it back, force her to look at him. Properly. Wants to…hell he doesn't know what, but not this. Not this bullshit.. He takes a step forward, gets up annoyingly close, in her face.

"Are you out of your mind?" he hisses, able to smell the vodka on his own breath as he does. Damn woman. The things she does to him.

"Schh – keep your voice down in my house!" Her eyes dart anxiously towards the living room. Clearly worried that Claire might overhear.

"Hurley's house." He corrects her. "What the fuck were you thinking?

"It was the only way."

"The only way to do what exactly Kate?"

"To take care of her – and him. She was gonna' give him up. It was the only way."

"So you what…you just introduced yourself as her _sister_? And she believed you? Just like that?"

"I have enough…. background information to back it up. It wasn't very hard. And she needed someone…I needed to…"

He shakes his head in disbelief. She's really something.

"Well, I'll be damned – you little grifter. But why? Why the hell did you do it? Trying to hang on to a little piece of the dear Doc?"

"I already told you. I wanted to take care of them."

"Why the fuck is that?"

"I couldn't give him up James – not this time."

"The doc?"

"No you asshole - Aaron!"

She busies herself with taking out plates, mismatched miserable specimens with dents and cracks. She slams them recklessly against the tiled counter. Angry now. He half expects her to start throwing them against the wall instead – finding the banging and clanking of porcelain a poor release. But it's an eerily composed anger.

"I had him – all the time we were off the island."

He shuts up.

Wonders how the hell he hadn't know? How no one had thought of telling him about it. He'd asked her to take care of Clem – and she had. She'd also reared someone else' kid for three long years. He wonders why she'd never told him, back there with the Dharma folks. He backs out of the little kitchen. Really there is nothing else to say

He _**is**_ an asshole.

_Please review if you liked it!_


	4. Another man

_Thanks so much for the reviews – so grateful for every one of them. - Animorph. Thanks for always putting little ideas in your reviews! It's always really cool to get a new angle on how you could write the story. Will try to incorporate them –just not yet._

_Disclaimer: None of it is mine. None of it._

* * *

**Indigo junction – Another man**

* * *

He watches from his spot in the doorway as she makes up the daybed. How she shakes out the crisp white cotton sheets, smoothening them over the mattress. It makes him nostalgic for something he doesn't even have a memory of. The room is clean and simple, bordering on austere. There is really just a bed in there, and a washbasin set between two large built-in wardrobes with layered door panels. There is an antique black fan mounted in the high ceiling, doing little to cool down the warm moist air of the night. The only source of light is an old modified oil lamp, giving off a warm supple sheen.

She climbs up to stand on her toes on the mattress, tying the large mosquito net on the four bed-posters and the canopy bar. It reminds him of that girl, a hundred years ago, climbing trees like a fucking monkey. He lets his gaze slip down, wanting to drink her in – all of her. Her wild hair that keeps falling forward across her face every time she looks down, and her toenails; painted claret red. He's never seen her quite like this before; neatly manicured and dressed all girly-girly. She turns her head towards him.

"Why are you here - really?"

Her hands are busy, making knot after knot, attaching the net on the bar at the head of the bed. It's fascinating to watch her, her fingers quick like spiders, like she has done this a thousand times.

"Just taking a little vacation – Thought I might check out the local attractions –" The last thing said with a cheesy wink that has her visibly cringing.

"You were huh? So _am I_, the local attraction?"

She just stares at him as her hands work on auto pilot. Those dark green eyes – they have haunted him. And now he is here – so near he can just cross the floor and… -_ it seems surreal._ He sees himself, her, in that bed. _It could be like that._

And he can't think for the blood rushing to his head.

_Hell. This won't do._ He has to pick himself up. Put on some of that good ol' boy bravado. He's not some geeky zit-faced teenager. But that's how she makes him feel. _Always._ Insecure or pissed.

"I just wanted to…Just wanted to see that you're alright – is all…"

_Hell no. That's not all - Knows fuck all what he wants. _Right now the pull of her is stronger than reason and he thinks to himself that this will pass. It has to pass. He can't go there again.

_Won't._

"And now you've seen I'm alright James: what now? - Now that you've seen I'm happy - are you here to screw up my life? - Is this payback time?"

He shakes his head, though honestly he doesn't know. _Perhaps yes_, maybe he does want to mess a bit with her happiness. Rock the boat some. The months of living rough, the panic attacks and the anxious insomnia certainly not making him a better man.

Her childishly rounded cheeks, cream and freckles. He wonders how she keeps from burning in a place like this. Her dress, a simple cotton slip-dress like the ones they sell in the cheap stalls that he passed at the seaside market. It's dark indigo with a paler blue pattern, narrow shoulder straps and a wide skirt that stops right below her knees. Her rather pointy knees, barely visible under the hem of the skirt as she moves from one side of the bed to the other. It is modest as dresses goes, still it makes is pulse race ludicrously. He forces himself to return his attention to her face.

_She isn't fooled, she knows that look._

"Don't try getting cute with me ok... - You better be 'checking out the local attractions' somewhere else!"

She has him by the balls with that. He has to laugh, and it isn't a fake, put-on laughter - it just comes out of nowhere. He has missed this. If only it weren't for the damn butterflies in his belly.

"Don't worry sweets – I'll be a good boy."

She gives him a sceptical glance from her position up on the bed, and mutters:

"Doubt it…"

He smiles at the result of her effort. The bed looks like something out of a honeymooner's brochure. The roughly carved headboard, the linen and the mosquito net, white and clean, hanging off the canopy. Making him think that this is a bed he can really find some kind of peace in – _might even be able to sleep in_. And he can't wait to put his head down on that pillow, feel the starched texture of the sheets against his skin. Finding a childish satisfaction in knowing that _she_ made this bed – for him. The feeling that someone is taking care of him.

For a second, he thinks of tackling her there and then. Would she allow it? He imagines fighting it out, play turning to heat. The two of them naked in the warm night - defiling the white purity of those sheets. He shakes the images out of his head. _No. He can't go there._ Not now. _This will pass. _

"Nice little crib! I know you're trying to recreate the tent atmosphere but sorry to disappoint ya' honey – ain't gonna happen. I need my beauty-sleep." He can't help teasing her. He leers at her, awaits her reaction.

"You can just cut out the big sexy seducer act.... When did it ever work anyway?!" Her large front teeth visible as she makes a face at him. It's unsettling how much she still stirs him. Obviously he hasn't done any growing up at all during the last three years.

"Seem to remember it working pretty alright with you." he says slyly.

"Ha. Yeah – right! The offer was never on the table anyway. - There are limits to my hospitality." She leaps down to the floor, less than graciously, all awkward, lean long legs, making her dress billow around her ass. "No air-conditioning I'm afraid. You'll need this against the mosquitoes."

She reaches over to hand him a pot of something cream-like that smells of lemongrass.

He brusquely catches her wrist just as she is about to pull it back. Lets his thumb rub against the sensitive skin right below the palm of her hand. Where he can feel her pulse. He draws her closer. Just an inch - testing her. She looks back at him, wide eyed and he doesn't know what that's about. It was such a long time ago, him and her. On another island – not at all like this. Tumbling in sand - angry, jealous, and heated.

"I don't understand what's going on, but… - We have a good life here and if you're coming for some kind of revenge… just get it over with quickly." She says quietly.

"My – you _are_ a suspicious girl!" He feigns a shocked expression that at least manages to entice a small stiff smile from her.

She wrenches her hand free, rubbing it as if he has hurt her. She turns around towards the doorway, gawking at her naked feet on the floor – an uncharacteristic shyness that just about stumps the wind out of him.

"Goodnight – Sawyer."

He finds that he doesn't mind her calling him that. After all. He has fallen from grace in more ways than one. He is back to hustling and conning folks for money. Hell if he could con her - he probably would.

_Only – there is absolutely nothing that he could take from her. _

"It's good to see you again Freckles," he calls after her.

* * *

He hasn't slept much, but that's just how he is nowadays. Since the island, the explosion. What with the jetlag, the dreams and the waking up not able to breathe for some unknown terror lingering from fretful quasi sleep. _That's just how it is now._ Since Juliet…. Since waking up at an airport hotel. Going insane trying to wrap his mind around the impossible. Back again. Back where he started – at the airport.

This morning in spite of the lack of sleep – for the first time in ages he actually finds himself surprisingly at peace. Content.

_This exact moment_.

A steaming hot glass of sweet aromatic Balinese coffee that he cradles even though it's too hot, far too hot. It's black and grainy, the ground coffee straight in the glass, thick enough to stand a spoon in. He just holds it under his nose and inhales, savouring the moment. Claire and Kate have served up a little simple breakfast on the terrace. The ants come faster than you can bat an eyelid, and the flies are immediately drawn to the sweetness of the coffee and the battered fried bananas that Kate's bought off the street up the alley.

Claire leaves them alone to tend to Aaron and Sawyer finds that sitting there on the little porch – there is absolutely nowhere he'd rather be. She stuffs her face hurriedly with the little golden fried bananas, licking the brown sugar and coconut from her fingers._ Hardly ladylike._ It makes him snort and she throws him a quick, _'what's your problem?'_ glare.

The trees in the little garden are sickeningly perfect in daylight. Masses of white flowers have fallen off the knobbly old trees to cover the stones of the court yard. The fragrance they give off makes him slightly light-headed. Or maybe it is her. Her eyes like fucking lantern. And he thinks that; _today - I will choose – I will make up my mind._

There is a loud knock on the gate and that is really the end of it. The end of whatever idiotic romantic notions he might still have harboured with regards to her. The end of their idyllic little breakfast in paradise. The end of having a choice.

_A man._

A tall, lanky Eurasian man. Youngish, probably a head taller than most Balinese, hell, he's taller than Sawyer himself though in a lean, athletic way. He moves like a dancer, quickly, graciously with a fluidity that doesn't take away from his masculinity. The way he kisses Kate on both cheeks - his features, gut-crushing mixture of East and West.

And Sawyer is secure enough to admit that this man is _disturbingly beautiful._

_She has someone._ Of course she would. He knew there was a possibility. _Heck, beautiful girl like that_. But he'd never actually pictured it – really believed it. Hadn't spent a second worrying about it - him – the other one.

_Had he thought she might have been waiting? - For him?_

Like he had waited – _ha_ -hooking up with Jules as soon as she was out of sight. Yeah, why the hell would she? He'd never given her a sign, the slightest indication after Juliet – quite the opposite. What they had was so far back. Years back. He would never have thought it would bother him like this.

Then again, Sawyer has rarely met a man that he felt could compete with him. It bothers him that she has found such an easy replacement. The fucker even has dimples, his easy smile flashing white strong teeth, visible between sensuous, finely drawn lips – it just makes Sawyer want to thump the sucker.

He looks like something straight out of _The Great Gatsby – _an exotic, peregrine version. In fact "dandy" is the first word to crop up in Sawyer's slightly shell shocked mind. The effortless style; light linen trousers and an untucked Nehru-collared thick cream cotton shirt.

"This is Danan," she says and he thinks; _hell no – he won't be jealous_. But then again, just looking at the odd beauty of this man makes his stomach turn. And the thought of her eyes shining. The expectant look of a girl waiting for her lover.

"Danan, this is my friend, James. He's visiting for a _little_ while." She puts a really weird emphasis on 'little' that has him thinking that she must be somewhat nervous. Sawyer makes a half rise from the seat and stretches a hand out trying not to show his own discomfort.

"My pleasure." He says switching on the charm. He can't let him know. _The beautiful man_ – on Kate's porch, drinking her thick heavenly Balinese coffee from her goddamn unmatched glasses.

If Sawyers brand of trade is sexuality, then this man extrudes a finer sort of sensuality – a rare quality among men. Skin; a light golden maple syrup, his head round and well shaped and distinctly European, glossy chestnut brown hair smoothed back across the skull like a 1920's movie star. The forehead broad and clean, emotions clearly on display on his face – real or affected – who the hell knows. He has a European's easygoing manner, but a spiritual Balinese allure. _Heck, he'd probably make a superb conman, a formidable ally_.

His nose is straight, with nostrils that flare when he talks and talk he will, animated, witty and strikingly intelligent. Sawyer gets lost somewhere along the way, finding it awfully distracting watching the man's broad hands, the long fingers gesticulating vivaciously. A suave, unforced sophistication that cannot be faked. Kate laughing, talking, engaging herself in the conversation, easily – the absence of tension. They tease each other in good humour. Back and forth and _**this**_ - Sawyer finds - _**this**_ is the greatest affront. The thing he finds the hardest to swallow.

The hijacking of a part of her that was **_his_**.

He tells Sawyer that his mother is Norwegian, his father of the high caste Brahmins, from a prominent Balinese family. Seems like a load of bull to Sawyer, just blatant bragging. His name is long and sounds like a load of nonsense, nothing that he will be able to remember – had he even wanted to.

There might be a large serving of Europe in him but his eyes; the hooded, lightly slanting almond-shaped eyes - are pure Bali. The colour is a rare liquid golden bronze, sleepy and intense all at once, lined with alarmingly dense inky lashes. Bedroom eyes. _He can understand a woman falling for those eyes. _

He tells them about his work. He's an artist.

_Of course he is a fucking artist. Aren't we all?_

The man is careful to point out that he doesn't do any of the traditional, culturally laden touristy stuff, he is an abstract artist, experimenting in different techniques. _Everything_ the man tells him grates on Sawyer's nerves now. He knows it is childish because Danan is humble enough and talks about himself with a large portion of self irony. He jokes about his bad relationship with his father and how he can't for the life of him hold on to any money he makes. _He seems like a perfectly nice guy._

But somewhere around here in the conversation, an alarm of sorts goes off within him.

_This is off. _

_This is wrong_.

If there something he knows instinctively, it is to spot another impostor. A sure fool-proof warning sign; _too good to be true - too perfect. _He'd have thought Kate would have seen through it. She'd always been able to call him on his crap – but he realizes that this guy is in a different league. The smooth, unforced conversation, the humility, the affability towards Sawyer, and the way he looks at Claire and Aaron when they come out to say hi. _It's off._ He is up to something - of that Sawyer is certain.

But Kate is clearly taken in by this man.

And Sawyer finds that he hates him with a juvenile intensity that defies all reason.

* * *

Later.

When they are alone and walking in the sharp morning sunlight on the beach path towards the Emporium. It's early and few tourists are out yet. The few they spot sit in the seaside café's having breakfast in the still fresh morning breeze. Some women walk by them, carrying their heavily laden offering-bowls with flowers, cakes, beautifully crafted little baskets and incense sticks. There are tiny little temple-like structures all along the beach walk, and it is the women in their traditional lace blouses, colorful sarongs and flowers tucked in their hair who feed the Gods.

Sawyer stretches his arms, flexing his hands behind his neck as they walk. His muscles are still stiff from the long flight yesterday. And he finds it impossible to take in the beauty around him. The image of her laughing with _him_. The intimacy between them. Hell – that guy doesn't deserve her - gold speckled bedroom eyes or not. There is something off.

_Nobody is **that** perfect._

"So that's your new beau, Peachy-Pie?"

She looks unruffled. _Fucking gorgeous._ She's wearing her bright red espadrilles, the red cotton straps tied in a criss-cross pattern around her ankles.

_Arrgh. _

It's too much. She doesn't wear a smudge of make-up. And he likes her like this. Her hair curlier than ever, still humid from her morning shower, with reflexes of red and mahogany brought out by the way the rays hit her head. She's dressed in a simple tunic, turquoise and light blue, light khaki pants that reach just below the knee.

"You have no business being jealous Sawyer."

"At Gatsby? - Do _you_ want me to be jealous Freckles?" He uses her nickname on purpose, wanting to knock her down, break her flow.

"No – you forfeited that chance a long time ago." She holds her hand against her forehead, both to shield her eyes against the low morning rays and to prevent her hair from blowing in her face as they walk.

"I did – did I?!"

_Like when?_ When he'd told her that he loved her and she hadn't? Or when he jumped out a frigging helicopter to save her? Or when he'd combed that fucking island tirelessly every day for three years looking for her, waiting for her return? When exactly had he forfeited anything? But he knows. _Juliet._ Yes, he _had_ given up on Kate.

"Like you said yourself; we'd never have worked out. That was in another life. Another time." She shrugs and tucks away a wayward strand of hair that has blown against her mouth.

"Yeah – you're absolutely right. Wouldn't want to upset things here with Gatsby." he grumbles. Peeved that he hasn't managed to needle her more.

"No we wouldn't."

She gives him that high brow look and turns away from him. Conversation over, she walks sullenly ahead of him.

"But you know he's a con right? He's after something alright – I can _smell_ it." He grumbles as he trudges on behind her kicking at the sand on the cemented path. Enjoying the way her skirt lifts slightly in the gentle wind gusts blowing in from the sea.

She doesn't bother to look at him, walking on with her head held up high.

"Yeah right, 'cause _ooh,_ he might dupe me out of my three dollars worth of custom jewellery! Woohoo, scary stuff. Or steal my colour TV…. No, no wait," she swivels around, making a silly Marilyn Monroe face, her index finger on her pouting lips like a ditzy blonde. "…Nope, no… he can't cheat my TV off me. - 'cause I haven't got one! "

"I know what I know. And I know a con when I see one."

"What is wrong with you!?"

"Ok, but dontcha' come crying to me when he has stolen all your pots and pans and …_**and**_ screwed you over." He mutters, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets, hiking up his crumpled blue shirt. Nothing clean to wear and it hadn't mattered until that sleazebag showed up with his perfectly ironed fucking Nehru shirt. She walks on in front of him, cool as a cucumber.

"Yeah 'cause that's _**your**_ speciality – isn't it?! For your information, he and his sister have helped us a lot here."

_The asshole's got a sister huh?_

They walk on, where the path narrows he takes advantage of it and closes in on her. They end up walking almost shoulder to shoulder.

"How did you manage to break out of the pen Kate?"

"Hurley." She snaps, not bothering with a longer explanation and Sawyer imagines Hurley with a crowbar and an eye-mask breaking the padlock on her cell.

"Hurley did what exactly?"

"Lawyer, bail, the whole shebang."

"So you what? You got off? Cleared? Just like that?"

"Not exactly…."

"You skipped bail – didn't you!? Hurley helped you - right freckles? By the whole shebang, you mean a false passport and one way ticket to the Orient right?"

Her lack of response is answer enough.

_It's not Hurley hiding out here. It's her_. She's still a fugitive – and he is helping her. He should have known. Though, what the hell is in it for Hurley, he can't for his life understand.

* * *

_Just something to keep busy with while waiting for the premiere of season 6__. Please leave a review if you liked it!_


	5. Another's child

_Thanks so much for the reviews. Sorry if it took a while to post this chapter. I went back and forward and changed it. I hope it turned out ok._

_Disclaimer: None of it is mine. None of it._

* * *

**Indigo junction – Another's child**

* * *

It's early and Aaron is still sleeping soundly in his basket in the living room. He's a good sleeper, always has been. Claire in the baggy t-shirt and drawstrings she uses for bed, humming softly, pulling out cups from the cupboard. They stand there at the counter, side by side, preparing sandwiches, boiling water for the coffee.

That's when she feels like they really _are_ sisters. _That it isn't a lie._

Sawyer pads in wearing only his shorts, drowsy, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Out of the nowhere, quick as a flash, he slides his arms around her waist from behind, presses a light kiss on her cheek while murmuring a raspy; _"Morning sunshine!"_

_He might as well have shot her point blank. _

The knife in her hand slips, hitting her plate with a loud clang. She turns slowly only to witness him treating Claire to the same greeting. He glances sideways at Kate while releasing the stunned Claire. He holds her eyes for a split second, then casually flips his hair back off his forehead, grabs a cup off the countertop and struts right out again. Leaving both women speechless in the kitchen, Claire wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, looking amused.

"Very affectionate, your mate," sh e says, eyes glittering.

_And Kate just knows. _

Knows that he'd done it out of habit.

_Juliet._

Knows that this is how he had greeted _her_, every morning in their quaint little Dharma kitchen. For just a fleeting moment he's forgotten where he is and who she is. Just sweeping in on autopilot. _And it hurts_, for reasons that she can't even begin to explain. This short glimpse into his life. With _her_. Suddenly she can picture them together. _This is how it was._ Uncomplicated. Normal. A sweet morning kiss, his hands on her hips.

_That's what he has lost. - _And what she could never have with him.

_---------------_

Claire dresses quickly to leave for the Emporium. She's supposed to be over at Hurley's today, helping him out with some paper stuff, things that she has proven surprisingly adept at. In the beginning, she'd been happy enough to spend her days with Aaron, but as of lately she has started to complain. Tired of feeling like a burden. Still, as she hands the squirming baby over to Kate she seems conflicted about leaving him. Anxious in a way that Kate hasn't seen before.

"It's not that I don't trust you," she says and the look of guilt on her face makes Kate ache for her. _You shouldn't trust me_, she thinks_. I'm not who you think I am._

"I know…I know it's hard to leave him, but I've got him. I'd never let anything happen to my favourite nephew, you know that."

Claire makes a face at her, gathers up her flaxen hair in a ponytail while edging her feet into her shoes. Cheap plastic shoes. She won't let Hurley get her anything nicer.

"He's your _**only**_ nephew," she says.

_If only he were. It would have been much easier._

* * *

He sits in the living room, leans his blonde head against the white cotton pillows of the hardwood sofa and watches her play on the floor with Aaron. The infant is on his tummy trying to grapple a little toy animal. Just as she has foreseen, Sawyer acts as if nothing has happened - nothing at all. And she just _knows _already - that he will do it tomorrow again. Sail into the kitchen and plant a big fat kiss on each of them, trilling _'morning sunshine!'. _Just to cover for the slip-up.

_He'll never admit to it. The kiss meant for another._

She caresses Aarons plump little legs, the small cotton socks about to fall off from his flaying feet.

"Does Claire know you like to pretend he's yours?"

_Bastard. _He's got an eerie knack for gouging her just where it hurts the most.

"Piss off Sawyer."

He clicks his tongue patronizingly at her.

"What kind of language is that to use around the little sprout, darling?"

The _'darling' - _the worst insult of all.

She's been walking on eggshells since the moment he arrived, but it's especially bad today. He's all suggestive comments and underhanded provocations, making her wonder if he's just trying to offset the _'good morning'_ gaffe.

_Sawyer. _

Against all logic, against all common sense and reason, one day he'd just been there – on her porch.

In another time, another era, that would have meant _everything_. But now, with Aaron and Claire to think of, seeing him here, blond, crumpled and beautiful, just fills her with dread. At any given moment, he could out her to Claire, reveal her as the fraud she is. The fugitive, the freak who stole someone else's sister. She knows he doesn't get _this._ The physical need to be with him, with Aaron. And how could he ever understand?

_He wasn't there._

It's unnerving how he has suddenly come gate-crashing into their lives as if nothing had ever happened. - _Juliet, Jack, the bomb, the end. -_ She would have expected him different. A broken, angry, bitter man. And if he'd hated her, she'd even have understood all that. She'd have expected it too.

But _**this**_ – this man – she doesn't get. The tireless laid-back badgering, the constantly following her around, clearly trying his best to get on her nerves. This man has little or nothing in common with the version of James she'd found thriving amongst the Dharma Initiative. Whatever growing up he'd claimed to have done back then – she sees zero proof of it now.

He evidently has his own agenda. Relentlessly taunting her, dropping little hints and intentionally leading the conversation onto thin ice. Smirking as he watches her frantically claw her way back on dry land again. She is wary never to leave Sawyer alone with Claire, if even for a moment. She thinks that _this __**can't**__ be it_. There must be more to him than the teasing and the flirting, the reverting back to some clownish variety of the Sawyer that she had initially crashed on the island with. It all seems fake, put on. She is certain that somewhere behind that façade, is a very angry man - holding her accountable.

_She can't trust him._ In spite of the nonchalant, happy go lucky smokescreen he surrounds himself with, she senses something hardened about him now that wasn't there before.

* * *

She goes out. Just has to get away from being holed up with him at the house, alone. She buys some food at the market and takes a stroll down the beachfront on her way back.

She loves sitting here. In the sand, a bit away from where the waves lick the beach. Her shoes beside her, her toes free to burrow down in the soft sand. Him, in her arms, eyelids fluttering in sleep, little pink fists clenching and opening like they are trying to reach for something. Tied tightly to her chest in the batik sling the way their old neighbour Ninik Tini has taught them. His head high on her chest so that she can just lean down and touch his skull with her lips. Just there, on that delicate spot where the pulse is visible, at the crown of his head.

There are stray dogs on the beach, a little pack of them. They chase each other, clearly playing. One of them wears a collar and they look pretty well-fed. Perhaps they are not strays after all. They look like someone cares for them. _Loves them_. Their fur is short and coarse, the typical sturdy good-tempered Balinese Kintamani dogs, erect ears and happily wagging tails. She watches as the little brown one chases a larger, cream coloured dog while she gently rocks the gently, the sound of the waves rolling in making her sleepy. Content.

_He. Her redemption. - But not her child._

To be allowed to sit here, for a while, his little ticking heart against her own slower beat. She likes to imagine that somehow he remembers who she is. Remembers her smell, her voice. Likes to think that somehow this impossible memory transcends time.

* * *

_She had tried so hard to make up for the past. _

The guilt over what Jack had instigated – blowing them all to hells end. She'd decided that _something_ good would come out of it.

While in her holding cell at the city jail waiting for her bail hearing, it was the thought of Claire and Aaron, but mostly of Aaron, that would keep her awake at night. She'd burrow her face into the thin lumpy pillow and try to summon up his smell. She would try to remember the feel of his baby-smooth downy cheek against hers. The way he'd sleep, on his back, like a cross across the bed like he was sent here to rule the world. Taking up ridiculous amount of space for his small size.

She'd count the days with an escalating sense of panic as his expected birthday drew closer. _The hopelessness of it all._ She wouldn't be there and god only knew what would happen to Claire in this new version of reality.

Kate wasn't religious, she'd pretty much turned her back on god. As far as Kate had been concerned - he had failed her miserably and she remembered only vaguely her childish prayers, urged on by her mother. Fat big lot of nothing had come from those desperate prayers. But there, many years down the road, she'd prayed again for some kind of miracle.

And if god shows his mercy in the shape of a large Latino man with curly long hair and a heart bigger than his girth, _then yes_; Kate's prayers had been heard.

Hurley riding in like the veritable knight in shining armour, her very own, putting to her disposal a team of L.A. county's toughest criminal defence lawyers. She'd felt more than intimated at her first meeting with the team and her mind had swirled around one thing; – _how to ever repay Hurley._ She'd been all alone – resigned to her fate. Her only hope for help, Jack, had been glaringly absent during the whole ordeal, perhaps busy fighting his own demons. Or maybe he'd given up on her – for real this time. It wasn't a far stretch to imagine him feeling a little smidgen of satisfaction to see her finally take responsibility for her crimes. Then Hurley had come. And Hurley's answer when she'd tried to pressure him why, _why on earth he would do that for her?_

"You're family, dude. You are one of my people, whether you like it or not, and I stick by my people."

It had bowled her over, him thinking of her like that. Her first reflex had been to laugh at the corniness of it all but truth be told, his words touched her deeply – cliché' or not. And she'd thought that in that case, she'd make him one of her people too – and find a way to repay him. However absurd that idea had seemed at the time.

Her bail was set at such an extraordinary colossal amount that she'd felt light-headed when the judge read that figure out load. It had seemed like monopoly money to her. _A joke._ Hurley had more than delivered on his speech to stick with her. He'd posted her bail without even blinking, making her feel sick to her stomach. So indebted to him that she could barely bring herself to say thanks. She couldn't think of a single word that wouldn't have seemed shamefully inadequate.

He had simply shrugged and said: "It's just money."

He had done more than post bail. He'd done more than any other person. He'd picked her up upon her release and driven her straight home. Kate who was unaccustomed to this kind of generosity had been confused. She was stumped by his actions and the lengths that he'd gone to in order to get her out. _Her. A worthless, good-for-nothing piece of trash._ He'd even prepared a bedroom for her, clearly lovingly decorated by his mom with floral wallpapers and a little tacky crystal chandelier. A horrible expression from her own mother had come to mind; _like pearls before a swine._

Without a word Hurley had placed a little black suitcase on the bed, waving to her to open it. She'd opened it after he'd gone downstairs to give her some privacy.

Some clothes, a large brown envelop containing seven thousand dollar that she'd counted out with hands that refused to stop shaking. And then, the most baffling item of all; a Canadian passport, with her photo on it. And the name:_ Catherine LaFleur._ At first she'd felt nauseous. It was too weird. Obscene, like faking a kind of connection to _**him.**_ But then she'd laughed, a loud nervous laugh, at Hurley's twisted sense of humour - or perhaps more true; his lack of imagination. Probably choosing the first alias that had popped into his mind. It was such an obviously fake name, more like a stripper's alias, that she'd already pictured trying to walk straight-faced through immigration without cracking up.

That's when the plan had first begun taking shape in her mind. There on the bed in Hurley's guestroom, sitting on the dusty pink, frilly bedcover holding her fake stripper's passport in her hands.

She'd used the notebook in Hurley's luggage to plot it out. Drafted a background story and gone through it until late evening, searching out the weak points, poking holes and then gone back to reinforce the feeble areas. When she'd felt reasonably confident with the outcome, she'd taken a shower and joined Hurley in the kitchen with the notepad and one of Hurley's yellow towels around her wet hair. She'd asked him to hear her out. Tried to explain what Aaron was to her – _her people._ And what she had to, just had to do. Make up for her failure, for not managing to bring Claire back the first time. _For failing him_.

Hurley had seemed unsure at first, asked to be allowed to sleep on it but the very next day, without a word, he'd dropped an envelop in her lap – an address. Claire would be there, and even Aaron maybe, if she'd already given birth. Kate had left immediately, the overwhelming urgency rushing her on. She knew Claire had come to L.A. to meet with Aaron's potential adoptive parents and she'd prayed that there was still enough time.

She'd gone to the squalid budget hotel scrabbled down in Hurley's messy handwriting. Her heart pounding like a sledgehammer in her chest, frantically mumbling her introductions, practicing her lies all the way there. The middle aged woman at the front desk had given her a suspicious once-over when she'd entered the lobby, sweaty and nervous. It had taken some persuasion, and quite a bit of money, to make her disclose that Claire had gone into labour the previous evening and presumably gone to the nearest hospital.

Of all the things that had happened, this was probably the most surreal sensation of all. To arrive there at the hospital and to find the baby that she had once helped deliver. The one that she had helped raise peacefully cradled in Claire's arms. _A red, wrinkled newborn once again._

It had about broken her heart seeing Claire there, all alone in that hospital bed, waiting for social services, the adoptive parents and their lawyer to come and legalise the handover of her child. She had felt like just weeping at the sight of Claire's pale tense face. The pressure had mounted inside her while she'd tried to get a handle on her emotions.

_She had to pull this off. Just had to._

Claire had been tired and confused and not in her right mind to ask the appropriate questions. And they _had _cried together. Two sisters, strangers reunited. Kate's genuine emotional reaction at seeing them again had somehow made it all the more believable. It was like a story out of a cheap romance novel, and only Kate knew how carefully scripted it actually was.

It had taken astoundingly little effort to convince Claire to come home with her to Hurley's. It had been surprisingly easy to talk her into stopping the adoption process and let herself be taken care of. Desperation written all over the young woman, over that heartbreaking, irreversible decision she'd been about to take. She had been saved in the last minute – found an ally – someone to shoulder a part of that unfathomable responsibility. Kate knew she'd been helped by the fact that Claire had really _wanted_ to believe everything in her enormous relief of not _having to_ give up her son.

She had asked unexpectedly little questions, never really probed into the details of Kate's background story. Kate had almost felt a disappointment over the overkill of preparation she'd put into constructing it.

And in the months that followed she had waited for the inquiries to come, suspicion to start building up, only; _it hadn't_. After they arrived in Bali, they had settled in to a comfortable little routine with a surprising ease. She'd found herself sometimes even forgetting that, which ever way you turned it, she was still living on borrowed time.

The stolen moments of pushing her nose into the crevice of Aaron's little plump neck, inhaling his scent. Feeling his little fists ensnare themselves in her hair. So fragile. Her brittle little life could shatter at any time.

_She doesn't want to think about it._

* * *

Aaron frets in her arms. She knows she has to return home to fix him a bottle, hoping Sawyer won't be there. Can't deal with him alone, always too close, too in her face. And she; still too vulnerable.

With feet like lead she returns home only to find him on the porch, rested, refreshed and ready to needle her again.

* * *

He loves watching her. It's such an indulgence. The pleasure multiplied a thousandfold by the fact that he knows it bothers her so much.

The little yard behind the house is something else, not like the unearthly beautiful garden at the front. It's functional, just an outdoor utility area. Sawyer, sits on the steps, head against the doorpost, smoking and pestering her. His two favourite pastimes since he arrived. He studies her, thinking of something to say - to bug her, bring her off balance.

It's uncanny to see how meticulous Kate is about the house. Everything neat, tidy and spotlessly clean. An impossible feat it might seem, living with a baby. She does the laundry herself here behind the house in a large bucket. He is amazed by the primitiveness of it. And that she accepts living like this – but then again – what does he know about her really? She'd taken to living in the jungle like a fish to water too. Adapted and merged with her newfound reality. She hadn't fought it. She had flowed with it and blossomed in the process.

_Like now. _

This, the girl that deftly scrubs the stains out of Aaron's and Claire's laundry. _It is someone new_. How she soaks the clothes, then scours them against an old washboard before running the lot through a simple old-fashioned washing machine. As far as he can see, it just spins the stuff around a few turns and then gives up coughing soap suds through a makeshift latex tube held in place by rubber bands. She fills the machine up manually with a hose and then just waits while it spins.

_The careful effort that goes into it all._

It clashes jarringly with his preconception of her as a hopeless heap of a mess. He'd never seen that in her back then. Her tent, on the island; a muddle of garments, sand and just random stuff. He remembers her just stepping out of her clothes on the spot, bunching them into balls. Chucking them in some corner, not caring where they'd landed. And he can't think of it - the throwing dirty clothes around in the the tent without thinking of her legs wrapped around his waist. _The flightiness of her affection._ One moment here, the next there. An emotional and physical mess.

And this woman – the one that does someone else's laundry in the stuffy back yard, sweat pearling down her neck, pooling at the crevices of her collar bones - he doesn't know her. _At all. _Perhaps she has changed. Maybe she is no longer that person._ The one he couldn't hold, who wouldn't let him._

She squats on the ground with the washboard, rubbing frenetically at a piece of cloth. She wears a faded non-descript, sleeveless cotton t-shirt. It's wet through and through, clinging to her torso and the wide military-green trousers are rolled up above her knees. Her feet bare on the ground making her look the spitting image of some Chinese peasant's wife. The dark fizzy hair is tied back with a red ribbon almost exactly matching the blotchy red on her cheeks.

She's obviously painfully hot from the exertion and the sweltering heat of the back yard. She will look up every now and then, to acknowledge his presence. A blank expression on her face. Until she can keep quiet no longer.

" You're gonna' just sit there or you gonna' help out?!"

Smirking back at her in a way he knows irks her immensely.

"Yeah, I figure I'm just gonna' sit here and enjoy the little _Miss Wet T-shirt_ contest."

The satisfaction of her quick glance down at her own chest as she realizes how she must appear. And then, deciding not to let it bug her, not to let him get the pleasure of it. She tugs at the hem of the grubby greyish shirt and cracks a smile, all teeth and deviating beauty.

"Poor you. You must be really bad off if you find this a turn-on."

"Never said it turned me on 'Sweets."

_Though it does. _

Fuck. _It does._ He knows she's just wearing one of those plain, practical bras – one of those cheap skin-coloured ones. He imagines it sagging and the elastic all pulled out. So why the heck does the sight of her elbow-deep in suds, sweaty and red-faced make him salivate? He pictures himself sneaking up on her, hunkering down behind her and slipping his hands around under that wet shirt. How her skin would feel against his palms. Hot and clammy.

_No. - Hell no. _

What kind of freak is he? The thought of going there – impossible. Pointless. He knows that. Not a chance in hell for them.

_Still, how he enjoys toying with that notion. – Of her._

* * *

His eyes on her, scorching her skin. She feels them burning through her clothes and it pisses her off. This can't go on, _it has to stop_. She can't live here with him like this – it's impossible. He's got to go.

Her cell phone starts playing a silly little ringtone – something from a children's cartoon. She wipes her wet hands against her t-shirt and reaches to search for it in her pocket.

"Yeah? Hallo?"

It's Hurley, his voice tense and harried, hushed as if he doesn't want someone to overhear.

"Kate. They came here,"

"Who?"

"I don't know but it didn't seem right. They wore suits, pretended they had a business meeting set up with me, and then just asked a lot of questions." He draws his breath. He knows how this frazzles her. "About Claire."

Darkness clouds her eyes and she looses her balance, tumbling backwards from the crouching position. She ends up on her behind, the wetness of the ground seeping in through her trousers.

"Is she…? Where is she?" She grapples with the phone, the nervousness and her still humid hands making it slippery. Sawyer watches her, eyes narrowd and his body arrested in it's movement. The still burning cigarette held just in front of his lips.

"She was out buying lunch for us when they came by. Dude, they don't look like they're up to no good." The tone of his voice, there is fear there. Though it was her, always her, who had wanted Aaron and Claire to come here - she knows he has grown attached to them. Feels as responsible as she does.

"What are we gonna' do? Aaron, did they mention him?"

"Nope, just Claire. I sent a guy I know to check up on them. He knows people in immigration and, ah never mind, they're from a security company called EON... "

"What would they want with Claire?" Her hands shaking now. It's over. Their fragile little world of lies falling apart. _They've been found._

"I don't know, but dude, it doesn't sit right with me. I just have a feeling it's got to do with the island, maybe not Ben though. Doesn't seem his style, dark glasses and suits. Maybe that other guy, the one with the freighter. Sawyer with you? Should we tell him?"

"Yeah," she turns around, away from his sight, hand in front of her mouth to muffle her own voice. "No – no I don't think we should."

Truth is, she just doesn't trust him. The arrogant man sitting there, looking like a big, lazy, golden cat, lapping up sunshine on the steps to her home. How pathetically vulnerable they are. She should have known this could never have lasted. She _**had**_ known. She had just hoped it could have lasted a little bit longer.

"Maybe it's nothing," she hears Hurley's forced hopefulness. "Maybe it has nothing to do with us – the island."

"Yeah, let's hope so," she whispers. She closes her phone slowly, slipping it back into her front pocket. Sawyers eyes on him. She glares back at him, daring him to say something. But he doesn't.

Aaron's shrill hungry cries spill out on the little back yard through the window of his room. She gets up hurriedly from the ground, a hand feeling the wet spot on the back of her trousers. Aggressively, more forcefully than necessary, she pushes her way past Sawyer through the open door.

The urge to hit him strikes her as she passes him, his blond head at level with her hand. Somehow she still feels like he brought this on them. _They were fine until he showed up. _

It is some of coincidence they'd come looking for Claire, just days after he'd arrived.

_Some coincidence._

* * *

_Please leave a review if you liked it!_


	6. Just another lie

_Thanks so much for the reviews! _

* * *

**Indigo Junction – Just another lie**

* * *

He gets up, lumbering behind her into Claire and Aaron's room, where she reaches to pick up the wailing baby. His head against her shoulder, one hand on his little curved back and one below his diaper, patting his behind. And it inflames him, the love she shows that little tot. That she's capable of that now - when she never was, _with him_. The excuses he'd made up for her in his mind, to explain her inability for intimacy back then, way back, when it had still meant something to him.

"Shh, shhh, you hungry aren't you?" She speaks softly to the baby, swaying back and forth with him as the wails dwindle down into a low whining sound. He watches her hand rub the infant's back. It strikes him;_ she has done this so many times before._

"What was that about? The phone call? Sounded like there might be trouble in paradise."

"None of your business," she snaps impatiently. Turns her back on him and leaves him standing there by the simple rattan cradle - like the big dumb oaf he feels like.

-------------------

She' had been beyond relieved when Claire had finally come back home after that disturbing phone call from Hurley. Mobster-movie style images of the slight girl being snatched off the street, pulled into a black van, kept popping up in her mind.

And then the lie. What to make up to justify her fears. Something not too outlandish that Claire would understand. She'd broken it down and put it together, piecing together a whole new set of untruths to introduce into their relationship.

In the end _she'd_ been the one to act out those abduction scenes, pulling Claire in through the door with both hands, holding her for a moment in a tight embrace.

"Thank God you're ok!" She'd let it out in an unguarded moment, her enormous relief getting the better of her.

"Why? What's wrong." Claire's bewildered look as she took a step back, freeing herself from Kate's arms. "Aaron? Is he ok?"

And Kate had launched into another pack of lies. This time about an estranged husband, violent and abusive - dangerous. A man who had enough money to track her down across the world. Her fear that he might have found her. That they'd have to be careful and keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

Lying is familiar territory to Kate and though normally she would have seen it as just a necessity, Claire's compassionate hug had caused the guilt to flare up with unexpected force. Lodging itself somewhere high in her chest, right next to the panic that she might not pull this off. But once again, she'd been saved by Claire's beautiful, trusting personality. It frightens her, this unguarded faith in people.

She wishes she could tell her not to believe everything so easily.

* * *

She stands absolutely still as she hears his footstep approaching the kitchen, the swish, swish of his trouser legs as he comes closer. _She'll get him this time_. She knows he will sweep in with his good morning kisses and she won't have it. Not again.

_Doesn't want Juliet's ritual - Juliet's kiss._

Claire is nearest to the door and gets first dings on his bristled morning kiss. She grins and shrugs it off. Kate is ready and waiting. Just as she feels his fingers gracing her hips she swirls her head around, too fast for him to escape.

His primly closed lips accidentally land on hers, shamelessly parted. And she doesn't know what she'd expected. She'd wanted to turn the tables on him, catch him of guard, but one thing is for sure. _She is an idiot_. An idiot for thinking that something like that could have ever knocked him, unsteadied him. If he is the least surprised, even for a brief second, he _sure_ doesn't show it. Instead his lips slide apart, his tongue brazenly meeting hers, nudging her mouth open further. As if this is what he'd meant to do.

_The sweetness of him – like a square punch in the stomach._

The joke is on her. The heat that spreads through her abdomen like hot oil, downwards. The urge to have more - take more. And it's sweet and painful at the same time - how he kisses her. She wants to hit him, thrash him for doing this to her. Though fact is - _she_ did this to herself. _She started this._ His fingers digging into the spot just above her hipbones, the little stretch of skin between her pyjama bottoms and her t-shirt. The tightening of his grip on her; the only sign that she might have any effect at all upon him.

And then, out of the blue he releases her. A quick patronizing pat on her bottom. Chuckling in that conceited way that makes her see red.

"My, my,.. we _sure_ are hungry this morning! We could continue this in a comfier spot... "

She swats at him, acting jokingly, though truth is – she'd like to hurt him for doing this to her. For making her heart raze like a soppy teenage girl. The knife on the countertop looking mighty tempting right now.

"So you guys _were_ together huh?" Claire has stopped buttering her toast and is just smiling at them. "I thought as much. You make a cute couple."

"Hell no sweetness! We were never together." he says, snatching a buttered toast from her plate. Crunching into it, breadcrumbs catching in his stubble.

Kate is grateful to him for that. She'd hate to have to weave him into her lies about the abusive husband – but she should have known. Should have known how he'd spin this. He scratches at his chin so that the crumbs come falling down.

"Nah, just sex – wasn't it sweetcheeks? We were at this camping trip and Freckles here would sneak into my tent and have her way with me – just to make her guy jealous. Great sex it was though – can't say nothing bad 'bout that."_ Crunch. _Another large bite of the toast. And she hates him. Hates him with fervour. Her lips still stinging from the kiss.

"Oh, the guy,… you mean your husband? You all went camping together?" Claire looks perplexed, eyes going back and forward between them. Sawyer's bullshit clearly causing her to completely re-evaluate her 'sister'. _Bastard. _Making her sound like some cheap slut. And the way that he enjoys this, savours the moment.

Sawyer perks up at the word _husband_, eyes shining above the toast in his hand. And he is not a conman for nothing. He thinks on his feet and runs with it.

"Yeah, we were there altogether, her hubby, me and home-wrecker Lucy here. Or, well maybe I was the home-wrecker? Anyhoo, who could blame her? Jack, her husband was a miserable son of a bitch. By the way - how the hell is the old cuckolded bean bag nowadays, honey? He's a doctor you know – a real honest to god doctor." The last said to Claire with not a little amount of sarcasm.

Kate wants to strangle him, no, better yet; she wishes she'd had Sayid here now with his sharpened bamboo sticks. She could think of a thing or two to do with them.

"You said he was a redneck, a hick," Claire says slightly confused by the heated emotions flashing between them. Yes, she might have drawn more of a Sawyer slash Wayne picture when she'd made that stuff up about her husband. But she hadn't had much time to think and she'd pulled out the first character that had crossed her mind.

"Jacko, a redneck!? Hell no. What a heap of baloney you're sis been feeding you! He's a tight-assed upper-class WASP if I ever saw one. Obviously not enough of a fellow for Lady Chatterley here. Nah, the stories I could tell you, you wouldn't believe it – but I guess we'll save those for an evening around the camp fire, marshmallows and all."

_He is on a roll._

Kate can't do it anymore, she grabs him by the sleeve, nails digging in through the fabric, and drags him out while he keeps babbling nonsense over his shoulder to Claire. She shoves him roughly into her room and shuts the door behind them. He smirks down at her, always the jester. And she want's to shake him out of that.

"Didn't know you felt like that 'bout me. No need to get rough - all you gotta' do is ask." he is still smiling, that stupid, I'm-just-a-dumb-hick and I'm-so-attractive smile that makes her want to …. Hell, she doesn't know.

_To kill him, seems too feeble a plan. _

"I want you out of my house!"

"I hate to be splitting hairs darling but seems to me that this is Hurley's hovel and he's invited me to stay. So stay I will."

The lazy drawl. She can't believe she'd once found it beautiful. She knows now, it's nothing but an act, like everything else about him. She wonders if there is even a grain of authenticity about him somewhere behind all that crap. _Then again, who the hell is she to talk?_

He pushes her gently to the side, his fingers taking the opportunity to slide up the length of her arm, her skin burning from the contact, while slowly turning the handle on the door with the other hand. Smiling no more.

"That kiss was something though. – You can greet me like that on _any_ odd morning."

Shit. Shit. She feels the walls closing in on her. It's hard enough to lie to Claire. To keep this dancing up with Sawyer – she's just not sure she's got it in her anymore.

* * *

Hurley yawns and leans back on the big pile of pillows on the sofa bed. All the fabrics a gleaming white against the dark wood of the furniture.

"Time to get back home," Hurley says. "have an early morning tomorrow. Gonna' go and check out that piece of land up west. Ought to be a good place to develop. Wanna' come along, tomorrow?"

"Sure, Hurley – I'll come."

Sawyer still cannot digest this new Hurley, businessman and all. He has tagged along for a few days now, since he arrived. Feeling pretty useless, like a clumsy puppy in his footsteps – the island-roles completely reversed. He'll hang out in Hurley's office, flirt with his secretary, snoop around in his drawers and just keep him company basically. And he is still amazed by the respect that people pay Hurley wherever they go – pinching himself every now and then. _It's Hurley – for Pete's sake!_

He guesses that this is what happens when you find yourself in the money. Only, they know now that Hugo had a whole pile of cash even _before _the island.

Hurley gets up standing, wiping his palms on his trousers and gathering his hair back in a pony tale, smoothening down some stray curls.

"Say bye to Kate for me will you man? Don't want to bother her."

Judging from the hushed voices and sporadic giggling from Kate's room – she could _need_ some interruption.

"They always like that? Shacked up in her room? – Ever hang out here like normal people?" He hears his own voice, irritated, like the disapproving father of a teenager. A mixture of misplaced jealousy and watchfulness. He has no business being jealous. He is all on board with that – in theory. In reality, well, it's a different thing altogether.

"Yeah, pretty much man. Why – does it bother you?" That flash of understanding in Hurley's eyes. He hates it.

"Nah, let her have her cheap little petting session with that wily whippersnapper. Better here than in the backseat of some car huh?" He smiles at Hurley like it matters none to him. No skin off his back. - But it _does_ bother him. _Hell, it bothers him a whole fucking lot. _

It's rude is what it is!

He and Hurley out here and the two of them holed up the entire fucking day in her bedroom. _It ain't right._ And to have to listen to it too. _Un-fucking-bearable. _

"She seems happy since she met him. She was pretty lonely before you know -all edgy and nervous – fretting about Claire and Aaron. He's been good to her , to us all really."

_He doesn't want her happy._

Damn. Danan like some frigging saviour. Flashbacks of Jack flitters through his mind. Like a horrible twisted repetition of their futile island drama. And he knows this is petty as hell. It isn't as if _he_ wants her, wants to lie intertwined with her in her dishevelled sheets all day, whispering sweet nothings in her ears. _Hell no. _

It's just that he doesn't want anyone else to do that either.

He still has no idea why the heck he bothered coming here at all. Why not find a way to snake himself back into Juliet's life? _Hell, she loved him once. _She could again. _Right?_ She wouldn't be the first woman he'd stolen from a man. That's his entire career, right there, in a nutshell. That is what he does. But something makes that impossible. Perhaps because he wants _her_ happy. because he genuinely wishes Juliet happiness. That's why he'd left her there, in her little house, rubbing noses with her Goodwin. They had looked like they were in love. And he'd never want to take that away from her. He'd caused her enough pain – in a different life. A different universe.

Kate is something else altogether. He _wants_ to be a nuisance to her. Wants to disrupt her stupid little daydream-like life That much is clear to him now. He knows, what happened that last fateful day on the island, was on him, all him. His eyes zooming in on her as Bernard spoke, searching her out, instinctively without even thinking. It wasn't even as if she'd returned his gaze.

Not that he cares either way, but he's often wondered, if she's even capable. _If she ever could… with him. _Or with anyone else for that sake. She just seems to be missing something, something that he could never give her.

Just then, he hears her laugh out loud, an unguarded, reckless laughter that makes him want to break down that door and pummel _that man_ to a pulp.

The one who manages to bring out _this_ in her.

* * *

_Not so much action in this chapter, hope you still enjoyed it. Please leave a review if you did. _


	7. Another crook

_Disclaimer: none is mine, none of it._

* * *

**Indigo Junction – Another crook**

* * *

He is alone in Hurley's office, feet on the neatly polished desk, leafing through an old travel magazine, when the guy walks in. A nerdy, wiry little man with a square head that looks like it's been transplanted off a larger, bulkier person.

_Sloppier dressed person this side of the equator you wouldn't find. _

He is wearing chinos that are so wrinkled they look like they've been wrung dried and then left like that. That they are crumpled turns out to be for the better since the creases almost manage to camouflage the vast multitude of grease-stains. As if he has left a dozen donuts to soak on them for a while. His tennis-shirt is of the synthetic variety, gaudy red, gold and blue pattern and he wears the little hair he has left smeared to one side.

Sawyer almost wants to drag the man outside to see how if the strong wind sweeping in from the sea today might style that hair into a horrendous one-sided rooster-comb.

The guy definitely doesn't look Balinese and as soon as he opens his mouth, Sawyer realizes that he is Californian - the slightly camp accent and mannerism reminiscent of Miles'. Probably Chinese like him too from what Sawyer can tell. Or damned if he knows, but Asian of some sort anyway.

"Mr Reyes here? I'm supposed to drop off the result of my analysis today…" he says. His skin horribly scarred by acne, deep angry red craters covering his cheek and his nose looking like it's been through a meat-grinder. But the eyes betray a clear and watchful intellect as he peers at Sawyer there at Hurley's desk, taking advantage of his friend's hospitality.

"Hugo's out. Ya' can leave it here buddy – I'll give it to him," he says looking up above the edge of the magazine. Annoyed about the disruption of his leisurely afternoon of free reigns in Hurley's cool, comfortable office.

_Mildly interested in being interrupted by this grease-hog_.

It's obvious that the man doesn't want to leave _anything_ in the vicinity of Sawyer. His black eyes sharp as his eyelids clip nervously.

"Nah, I'll wait dude."

And this is when Sawyer's curiosity starts to pick up – the tiny little sensors catching a whiff of something interesting. Comb-over guy screws his body uncomfortably under Sawyer's stare.

"Suit your self," Sawyer mutters as if he could care less when actually he'd like to pounce the guy and snap that tantalizing folder away from him.

The man takes a pew on the red designer sofa, sits down straight backed and stiff as an uncomfortable silence descends upon the room.

Sawyer doesn't know why but as the minutes tick away on the large wall-mounted brass clock - tension starts building up. Complete silence, with only the rustle of clothes against the sofa fabric as the man shifts position and the sound of the glossy pages of Sawyer's magazine as he flips them over impatiently. – His fascination quickly growing out of proportion. He is a man that acts mostly on gut feeling. _That is his gift_. And something here is tempting as hell. _He just knows it._ __

_**Can smell it.**_

His eyes keep flitting back to the brown paper folder clasped in the skinny guy's white-knuckled grip

_And he's just **got to** know._

He makes a u-turn. Lowers the magazine and fires up the old charm apparatus.

"So buddy, what kind of work do you do for Mr. Reyes?" He says as he bestows the poor defenseless sap with his most jovial we're-chums-smile.

"Oh, this and that, I'm an IT consultant. Do some research for him – market analysis and stuff too."

_Liar, liar pants on fire._

"Oh yeah? So you're like employed by him or this is a freelance gig of sorts?"

"Project to project basis. He calls me when he needs me to look into something," says the man and Sawyer almost feels sorry for the guy. _Too easy._

"Look into something huh? How ' bout that?! So you're like a private eye or something?"

Sawyer puts on his thickest country bumpkin act. Smears it on liberally and this guy might be bright and all but he's a lamb. _Too easy._

"You could say that," he says with a smugness betraying that he'd really like to tell. And Sawyer knows he's got one foot in.

"Man, this is no place to hang out on a sunny old day like this. How 'bout we go grab a beer by the beach pool and check out the swimsuit parade while waiting for Mr. Boss-man? My treat!" He smiles as he puts down the magazine already knowing that he won't be refused. The other man flattered by his attention, ancient high school insecurity getting the best of him. The jock bowing down, deigning to speak to the unworthy geek.

_Yeah, he's got him._

A couple of beers down the line and they were riffling trough Hurley's private report together at the hotel pool bar. Something about these fellows working for EON, an obscure security company. It doesn't tell Sawyer jack shit about why Hurley would pay good money to draw their curriculum vitaes out of the woodwork. Until his index finger traces down to the second last line where the name Widmore Industries sticks out like a poppy in manure.

_Widmore. Widmore._ The island. The freighter. The creep that had been out to snuff that other creep – _Benjamin fucking Linus_. In fact, he had been so hell bent on it that he'd been totally fine with exterminating the entire island population in the process.

_Widmore._

Why the fuck would Hurley have a file about Widmore's goons?

Then, from there on it doesn't take long before it all falls into place. The phone call to Kate, when she was out back doing the laundry. And why the fuck wouldn't they tell him about it? _Unless they are hiding Ben in the freaking basement _- Sawyer doesn't believe they have anything to fear from this Widmore-guy. If his memory serves him right, he'd been less than concerned with any of the Oceanic survivors.

And Sawyer is more apprehensive about Danan. Illogical as it might seem - if there is any dirt to be found on him – Sawyer wants it.

_Just wants it._

------------------

Hurley's little undercover sleuth had really delivered – _above expectations._ Just two days after that first meeting Henry had dropped the file in Sawyer's hand, exchanged it for a big fat wad of cash and a promise not to tell Hurley.

Which is why, Sawyer is sitting there at his regular beach café below an enormous banyan tree, turning the envelop over and over in his hand. Flipping it back and forward on the table. The satisfaction like warm cotton wool in his belly

The cool glass leaves a pool of condensation on the rackety wooden table, his chair sinking down unevenly in the sand. He sips his drink and thumbs the large brown envelop in his hand. His fingers, moist from the dew of the glass leave dark marks on the paper. He wants to savour this moment before he tears it open. _It's a little like Christmas._

Sawyer sets down his beer with a clonk on the table and has time to raise his eyebrows at a pretty red haired girl walking by with swinging hips in a bright yellow sarong and a cerise top, before ripping open the simple manila envelop.

_His instincts had been right – and it's sweet. Incredibly sweet to be right._

* * *

_Ha._

Not only had his antennas picked up on the pock-faced Henry's potential usefulness. He'd been right about that smarmy boy-toy too. He reads line after line of the report, his grin growing wider with each fact confirming his misgivings.

_He knew it._

Though frankly, some of the lies he doesn't get. Doesn't understand why anyone would bother lying about it at all.

Danan _isn't_ the son of any frigging Balinese nobility. And the Norwegian mom stuff is just bullshit. His mother; a local woman, long dead and his _papa _an unknown Westerner. Probably some sleaze-bag tourist who'd knocked up a poor chambermaid during a wet vacation on the island. The talk around town - so to say - claims that the father although he'd not officially admitted to paternity, had somewhat supported the son from a discreet distance. Allowing him a rather lavish lifestyle considering his mother's humble origins. Albeit seemingly only offering a sporadic and highly irregular support with large stretches of time when the young Danan had seemed to draw on both creativity and a rather laissez-faire sense of moral to survive.

The talk of being an artist seems to be a somewhat liberal definition on what he does. He has sold tops two or three mediocre paintings and made a couple of murals around some restaurants and hotels, among them Hurley's resort. There is no way that this has been able to sustain him beyond the most meager of existences. There are also those that remember him in his younger years, always on the arm of some older female tourist or another, thereby gaining an ugly rep for being a so-called _beach boy._ – Although of the rather upmarket variety if the scuttlebutts are to be trusted.

Sawyer can't help nodding at this – it makes perfect sense for someone to cash in on those looks – in fact _it'd be stupid not too_. And he can't imagine it'd been hard for a boy like that to pick up some lonely middle aged cash-cows looking for a bit of a holiday romance.

_Bartering beauty for money._

His first name seems to be correct but the rest isn't. Not that this matters a diddledip to Sawyer, but just the fact that he'd lied about it warms Sawyer's heart considerably. It is just the most satisfactory feeling to be right. And it feeds his curiosity. What the heck is this guy after?

_With Kate?_

The girl that Danan passes of as his sister; Dewi, turns out to be the bigger mystery. What is certain is that they are by no means the children of the same mother and it can't be confirmed whether they are even related at all. The way the local back-fence talk goes, she'd just showed up on the island one day and some people seem to be convinced that might have come from Jakarta, but nobody could really say for sure. She'd been living with Danan in large old seaside villa for a couple of months when she suddenly up and tied the knot with a wealthy Australian business man. He had apparently met, fallen for her and been dragged to the altar within a whirlwind two-week holiday. No doubt waking up in the honeymoon suite with a splitting headache wondering what the heck had happened to his wallet. _Gold-digger _had been the verdict of a few of the neighbours that Henry had managed to get a word out of.

The lies are baffling to Sawyer but the only conclusion he can come up with, and this drawing from his own considerable professional experience; is that these two are grifters. Possibly not very talented grifters, but crooks nonetheless. The question ringing in his mind as he slides the report back into the envelop is; _what's in this for them_?

_With Kate?_

It frankly has him feeling very uneasy about it all. What the hell would the two of them want from Kate?

_She's got nothing worth taking._

And that fact alone leaves him with a foul aftertaste, trepidation. _He must have missed something_. This isn't all of it. It can't be just about two amateurish swindlers.

_**Can't**__ be._

His initial sense of euphoria over being right dies out. He imagines trying to tell Kate to be careful. She'd laugh at him or punch his lights out.

_Or both._

He's got absolutely nothing in that stupid report that could convince her of anything, except maybe that he is jealous. Jealous enough to go digging up useless information about her boyfriend. So he's the kid of some hapless unwed woman – _so what!?_ So he's a bit of a slut – _ain't they all?_ And she is a nobody that pretends to be Dandy-boy's sister – that is just right up Kate's alley anyway. They'd probably swap advice on the bloody topic. _**He **_still has those golden bedroom eyes. It changes nothing.

Kate and the tittering bedroom laughter. Him – _the asshole_. He will drive a wedge in there before it's too late, he thinks.

_Too late for what? _

He catches himself. It's _**already**_ too late. She's clearly fallen for that prick.

_And what if it isn't Kate who is the mark? _The natural choice would be Hurley. –_ Hell, that's who he'd choose if he'd to con someone._ It'd be pretty easy too, he reckons. It just seems a roundabout route to take, through Kate to Hurley. Why not directly? He could think of a hundred ways himself, just from the top of his head. Hurley is too good. Too trusting. Which is about the least of all the screwed up things that Kate is.

_This isn't right. He is missing something._

The thought lodges itself somewhere at the back of his brain where it pulsates and gives him the first inkling of a migraine coming on. He pays his check, leaving money on the table held in place by his empty glass. The envelop squeezed between his upper arm and torso, hands in his jeans pockets. He'll worm his way into this somehow. - That's what he _**does **_after all.

And who the heck knows, he might even be able to cheat that loaded old Australian dud out of a penny or two in the process.

* * *

_Christ._

It had been so easy - almost too easy.

The girl is pretty and young and it made it all that much more pleasurable. She looks nothing like her 'brother' and Sawyer can't believe no one has ever noticed that before.

She is tall and slim and her features - Sawyer guesses she might look Chinese; with the narrow sloped eyes, the high cheek bones and the alabaster white skin. Her hair is parted in the middle, Cleopatra-like straightness that brushes her pale shoulders, the colour - a rich auburn similar to Danan's. But then again, that colour is most likely straight from a bottle.

She has nothing of that gentle Balinese sensuality – and looks more like a high strung fashion model than a girl living the leisurely life of a rich man's wife on a tropical island. She walks fast and her movements are swift and jerky, extruding an impatience that must be torture to carry around in a place where everything moves with a snail's pace.

He'd followed her from afar for couple of days. Trailing behind trying to sass her out. Dressed in the legitimate tourist uniform of a large white t-shirt with the logo of a local beer, a baseball cap pulled down far over his forehead and ugly dark glasses.

She stays with her brother at that old style beach villa, not far south from the Emporium. The place had probably been the pinnacle of opulence and luxury in its days of glory. Now it looks a bit tired, worn down, the enormous garden unkempt. Still, he imagines a place like this, right by the beach could fetch a handsome price. He wonders if it really belongs to Danan or if he is gate-crashing, making a mental note of asking Henry to check it out.

The Australian hubby is nowhere to be seen and from what Henry's found out he only visits every now and then, his business tying him up back in Sydney most of the time.

_Sweet deal_, Sawyer thinks as he approaches the girl's table in the hotel beach cafe where she usually takes her lunch. _She looks lonely_. Rich and lonely.

_His type exactly._

He's never seen her in anyone's company for long during the days he's been following her. He wonders briefly if she is one of those rare breeds that is actually faithful to her old slob of a husband. That might be a challenge. And he loves challenges.

_Oh hell_, only one way to find out._ - Here we go._

He puts on the mask. The one that is like a second skin to him, the dumb but handsome Southern gentleman. He approaches her table, as if slightly embarrassed, just insecure enough to make her feel in control.

"Well, I don't wanna' intrude or nothing…" he reaches up to run a hand through his hair, cocking his head to the side and smiling that practiced little boy's smile and the way she looks up at him, her red lips shaped in a little o' – _he knows he's in._

"But I feel like such a dunce eating all by my lonesome. Would you mind if I joined you?"

She smiles back at him, small sharp white teeth visible between the blood red of her lips. Gesturing to the empty chair next to her. Looking like she can't believe her luck. _Clearly not all that hung up on the old dude then._

"Not at all – please….have a seat."

He stretches out his hand towards her, she takes it, gently squeezing his large tanned hand with her long manicured white fingers.

"I'm Dewi."

"Delighted, I'm Jim, Jim LaFleur." Exaggerating the twang in a way that folks find reassuring. He doesn't know why he uses that alias. Maybe because he wants to soil it, destroy the last remnants of that dream. _His one link to Juliet._

"LaFleur? I know another LaFleur… here, she's Canadian – you related?"

"Ah no, nope not that I know of but my family has a penchant for breeding uncontrollably. Not much else to do during those long sultry nights in the South, know what I mean?" He grins at her and the red spots on her cheeks and the way her black eyes glimmer, it seems she knows exactly what he means.

_And he knows that he's got her._

Just like that. - Lickety-split.

* * *

It is late afternoon, and she walks. Even though she could easily have made her way up to the street running parallel to this and caught one of the crowded local minibuses that drives her route.

She's planning to stop by at the market to buy some food for Claire at home, and for him too, on the off chance that he might be home. Lately he's spent a lot of his time outside, seemingly just coming back to sleep a few hours. It's a relief not to have him around constantly, worrying what he'll say to Claire about her, but it still irritates her. _She wonders where he goes_ – but can't bring herself to ask. It's none of her business anyway.

_She tries to keep it that way._

She buys '_sate' lilit'_ from a stall, the little barbeque sticks, spicy minced meat grilled on lemongrass stalks. The fragrance making her stomach churn as she passes the seaside cafés on her way back.

_And there he is._

Blond, tanned and laughing, throwing his head back. Clearly flirting. She doesn't know why the sight of him there is so disturbing. Why the sharp twinge of pain right at the core of her.

He sits facing the beach-walk talking animatedly to a woman. Kate can only see the woman's back, her hair glossy and smooth with a bronze luster, reaching just to her shoulders. Her skin is a gleaming pearly white, the kind of skin that has been pampered, and Kate knows, just from her poise and the way she throws back her hair that the woman is beautiful.

As she turns slightly, Kate catches the briefest glimpse of her profile.

_The bastard! What the hell does he think he's up to!?_

It's Dewi, Danan's sister!

She should have recognized her, even from the back, her tall, slim figure draped over her chair, strappy sandals and a casual grape coloured silk dress that Kate just knows must have cost a fortune. Her breath catches in her throat as she walks hurriedly by, head down, hoping they won't see her.

Shit. The thought of them together, unsettling, it makes her suddenly nauseous. Nothing good can possibly come from the two of them hooking up.

_Her fragile little mundane life. _

She knows he is up to no good. And she is scared. Her house of cards – he is bringing it down.

_As easy as that._

* * *

She can hear him now in the shower. Singing – like he is on top of the world – and it sounds horrendous. Damn close to tone deaf. And the awful bellowing makes it impossible to ignore his presence.

She's next door in the kitchen, boiling water for the coffee. Nervous enough as it is without the added strain of trying to push away the vision of him, singing, scooping cool water over his shoulders. Splashing it against his skin, there, just a wall away from her.

_Asshole._

_She needs to know what the hell he is up to._

"What do you think you're doing?"

She confronts him on his way from the bathroom. Thinking that if she catches him there, like that, he might be a bit more vulnerable, less confident.

_This is her first mistake. _

Thinking he'd be weaker like this. If anything his nudity and her own discomfort is just the leverage he needs to have an advantage over her. So fucking sure of himself.

"Nothing sweet cheeks, just taking a shower. But if ya got something else you'd like me to do - I'd be happy to oblige."

He has a towel slung low around his hips, held together in the side, carelessly with one hand. As if he'd drop it if it might gain him a point or two over her.

Skin still wet, the water pearling on his chest. He hasn't bothered drying himself. She figures that it's calculated just like that phony smile that she can't stand. The wall is so thick, there is no getting through. To think that once they had been close, intimate in a way that she'd been with very few in her life. And in spite of the tension between them, she'd considered him a friend, way back then. But all that is gone – he is here now – seemingly dead set on ruining her life and dragging everyone else around her down in the process.

"You know what I mean. **_Dewi._** What the hell are you doing with her!?"

"Aaw baby," he drawls. "Who's jealous now? She's just a friend, just a special, special friend."

He slumps down on his daybed, she hadn't noticed that she'd followed him in. His grin makes her skin crawl. He grabs his shirt off the bed, wrinkled and obviously worn and starts pushing his arms through the sleeves, pulling it up around his shoulders. He stops there, to look up at her.

"See anything you like..?"

"Nope. There is _nothing_ here that I like."

But she can't help it. _She is such a sucker_. And she knows this is just hormones. Just lust, instinctive and stupid and that it has nothing to do with her or him. It's just the way nature has her programmed – it means nothing. _Hell. She doesn't even like him.  
_

_But._

And there is always a 'but'. The bluish grey of his shirt against the caramel of his naked chest. The white of the towel against the dark skin of his taunt stomach.

" Make your move or get going Freckles. Ain't got all day, got things to do, fish to fry… girls to kiss..."

_The realization hits her suddenly. - Damn him!_

"She's a mark?! That's what this is about? You're conning her!"

"Tsst, always so suspicious... How do ya know I'm not in love?!"

"Don't do it James…" She cringes at the pleading tone in her own voice.

"And why the hell not? What are you gonna' do about it?" The dimples, the shaking that shaggy hair out of his eyes. _Damn him. _He smoothes the fabric of his shirt down and start buttoning it slowly. Enjoying this. Far too much.

"You'll ruin everything we have here. She has, well they've helped us a lot. they'll think we're in on it….Don't do it…"

He shrugs and she realizes her mistake only too late. _Her second mistake today._

She has just made it into a game. She has upped the stakes for him, making the chase even _more_ alluring. The chance to get one over her, to wreck her precariously constructed life. Just like she did his. _Irresistible._

_Juliet. _

_Shit.- __**He is settling scores.**_

"Say please!"

"What?!"

"All you gotta' do is say please..."

"You must be kidding me!"

"Just say the word Pumpkin and I'll leave her alone.."

_Over her dead body_. She glances down at his towel and says as dryly as she can:

"I don't know why you bother covering up. You're obviously nothing but a big dick anyway."

He laughs at that, snortingly. His head hanging forward, the stringy dark blond hair loose around his cheeks.

"Jayzuss, Freckles, you're wound tighter than a piano string…"

And then the change. Just as she is about to turn on her heel - _the transformation_. He meets her eyes under all that hair. The smirk melts away, and that look takes its place – as earnestly fucked-up as she is. He stretches out his hand towards her. _An invitation._

"Come here…" his voice so low, it's almost a whisper.

All at once he looks worn - tired. _Older._ There is so much crap behind, in between and in front of them – it's hard to see anything else. Too much anger and bitterness and hurt. All soiled, all ruined. Not a single clean spot left to stand on.

_But the pull is so strong._

And she almost, _almost, _almost takes that step forward, numbly mesmerized by the sudden change, the rare, fleeting moment of sincerity. Her nerves and muscles are twitching to respond, but before she has caught up enough to take that little step - her brain function kicks in again. Self preservation winning over brute instinct. She shakes her head violently – as much to herself as to him. No. _No._

_And it's just as well. _

Like that_ –_ just like that, the moment has passed and he chuckles as if at some private joke that only he himself is privy of. Jeering at her ridiculously rigid stance on the floor.

It's all an act. Like everything about him.

_She ought to know this by now._

He leans backwards, supported by his arms behind him, cocking his head towards the white linen of the bed. The sudden movement giving way to a splatter of little drops from his wet hair.

"Well, you know where I am if you need me to unwind you..."

She slams the door shut behind her to muffle out the humiliation of her own pathetic longing. The wanting him in spite of all that.

_Pathetic._

* * *

_Please leave a review if you liked it__. _


	8. Another reason

_Disclaimer: none is mine, none of it._

* * *

**Indigo Junction – Another reason**

* * *

_Dewi. _Danan's bogus sister.

She is a looker alright. And he knows he could have closed the deal with her already. _Had his heart been in it._

She has totally swallowed all the crap nonsense that he has fed her – _feathers and all_. Him, loaded but ignorant redneck. A gullible schmuck with too much money – and too little sense for his own good. Some prime real estate investment opportunity up on the west coast of Bali.

Yep, the bait has been set, the bee drawn into the honey trap. Now all that remains is for him to stop being such a frigging pussy and clap the jaws shut around her. A tidy little morsel. It'd be enough to keep him going for a while. Enough to keep him afloat until he has tracked down his next mark.

But then again. His fucking heart is not in it.

_He's stalling – and he knows it._

He ought to just get the money and get the hell out of here. The longer he stays – the harder it will be to do the inevitable. _He can't stay._

But he thinks that at least he has Dewi now, sitting pretty, just waiting to be plucked. His bargaining chip. _His loaded gun._ He decides to keep his finger on the trigger for now, postponing the inevitable while keeping an eye on Danan's every step. When the _dickhead_ makes his move, whatever it'll turn out to be – he'll be ready for it.

He'd tailed him too – like some miserable fucked-up clumsy sleuth . Stalked him dressed in his tourist garbs, blending in among the red faced holiday-makers with their hibiscus patterned shorts and cheap rubber sandals. On the second day he'd tagged along behind at a safe distance - Danan had met up with a curiously dapper man The pinstriped ultramarine blue suit, impeccable silver hair and a pasty clean shaven face. The man had had golden rimmed round glasses and carried an exclusive leather briefcase and. a tense expression that didn't sit well with Sawyer.

The two of them had shook hands, very business-like and disappeared into the lobby of the exclusive 'Panjer' boutique hotel. Nothing there but a beach side restaurant and private bungalows. Sawyer had watched them from across the street, Danan picking up a key from the front desk, while the man stood awkwardly waiting in the lobby.

An hour and a half later and Sawyer is getting freaking tired of standing across the street, an old hawker bugging him to buy yet another beer advertisement t-shirt. His hair itching beneath the baseball cap. He almost sits down at the curb, lukewarm can of coke slippery in his hand, when finally the two emerge again through the gate of 'The Panjer'.

_And nah – this isn't a normal business meeting._

They don't shake hands, hug or even acknowledge each other. They just turn and leave. Both looking stiff and uncomfortable. Danan's hair ruffled and for once, his clothes look crumpled and messy.

And if he'd not had Henry's juicy file about those young years of sleeping his way through Bali's droves of wealthy geriatric European tourists, he'd have guessed Danan had been in a fight – he looks beaten. That snooty amateur Casanova is up to something, and Sawyer still doesn't get it. _Is he turning tricks?_ Is he still nothing but a swanky call-boy?

_Where does Kate or Hurley fit into all that?_

_Damn Kate._ How can she not see it? He thinks of those two tucked away in her room – all fucking day long. Picturing the things that son of a bitch does to her. How she laughs and horses around – her delighted squeals spilling from that room. Makes him physically sick.

_She was never like that with him_. That effortless joy, they didn't have that._ What they'd had; tension - _angry, raw and heartbreaking. Frenzied, love making that was more about irate revenge and irrepressable attraction than sweet drowsy pillow talk.

More fearful warfare than tenderness – _though they had shared that too -_ if just for a few short fleeting moments.

The ridiculous feud for her favour between himself and the doc – driving everything to the verge of ruin. _No, it was never like this. _He'd actually never imagined her capable of this kind of frivolous shit. The giggling and sniggering with bloody Dorian Gray. He'd thought her too damaged – he'd have understood that too. This, finding her like this leaves him with a sense of loss that he can't quite explain.

And how the fuck is he supposed to stay there and listen to them in that room? Knowing that her new man's just had a tête-à-tête with a sleazy old pinstriped bookkeeper. The simultaneous wanting to cover his ears and scream and the wanting to be there. _Having to be there _Waiting for him. Watching his steps around the house. Waiting for him to make a mistake. Give himself away.

_Damn her! _– How can she not see that something is off!?

All he knows is that he is torn between wanting to fuck up her life and not wanting anyone else to beat him to it. _And that would be just swell,_ if only it were not for this _tiny_ little piece. The one that is so small that he tends to misplace it, loose it or forget that it exists altogether. The infinitely tiny bit – the one that he can hardly bear to concede to.

_The just wanting to watch out for her_.

* * *

They are lying on her bed. Whispering, sniggering softly, talking in hushed voices, passing a spicy clove cigarette in between them. Like the lovers they are not – _will never be._ He turns sideways, one long hand tucked under his cheek and his dark hair messed up, falling across his forehead. He pushes it back leisurely, that gesture he has, languid and catlike.

"You want to talk about it Katie? Why we're doing this? This guy - it's _**that **_guy right? The oneyou told me about - right?"

"Yeah – yes it's him…" she finally says quietly.

She inhales quickly, too deeply. She is not a smoker, not normally – but this with him, has become one of their little rituals. She's not been there for half a year yet, and known him for even less time. It seems odd that they should have already settled into such a comfortable routine.

The lying fully dressed on her bed for hours and hours, talking, smoking – sometimes drinking. Shuttling a bottle of something cheap and local back and forward between them, alternating with the clove cigarettes. _But she likes this._ Likes his uncomplicated, undemanding company – the fact that he doesn't pry. It reminds her of Tom – of an innocent time, before all came crashing in on her. She'd almost call it trust.

_If she'd been one for trusting people._

She passes him the cigarette, and he dips his head while taking it. Those obscenely long eyelashes casting long shadows across his cheekbones.

She lies about most things. She doesn't know why she'd told him a half truth about that part._ About him._ It was wound tight in a pack of lies too, like everything else but at the core of it, there was that grain of truth. Of the man that she'd lost, before she'd even had time to decide if he was for her.

"So again – I don't get it. If you don't want him anymore. Why are we doing this exactly?"

When she doesn't answer he rolls back on his back, picking invisible lint from his shirt.

"Never mind Katie-girl, you want to wind this prick up - I'm all in. Just for the mere pleasure of bursting his big fat ego. Can't imagine what you ever saw in him... I mean he is gorgeous and all if the arrogant macho-man cowboy is your thing – which _obviously_ it is… But really Katie, he's a jerk of massive proportions…"

She lies there gazing up at the net over the bed and the fan above it. The gentle humming from it, making her sleepy.

"He wasn't always like that…" She says quietly. Because he wasn't. But she is part of the reason that he is now. She'd helped demolish his perfect life, with _her_, unwittingly or not, it doesn't really matter.

Not one to linger on uncomfortable topics, he just sighs as if to say that he still doesn't get it, but then he shines up, sitting up abruptly, suddenly remembering something.

"So you wanna' hear of my latest conquest instead?!"

She can't help laughing at him. His eyes go round, like a cat's. Those scintillating yellow eyes that must have broken a thousand hearts -_ but will never break hers. _She nods, the back of her head rubbing against the pillow.

She'd promised Hurley to try to speak to him. They had to do something – and soon. A man, a completely different one, had been spotted, loitering around in their alley, probing their neighbour, old Ninik Tini. About Claire. _And Aaron_. It had jolted her into action – she has to do something. They can't stay here. _Like sitting ducks._

Another lie, muddled and unclear, about some guy that is after them and he doesn't ask any questions. Just simply offers to help.

"We've got a bungalow up on the north coast. Remote area, you'd be ok there. You can all borrow it for a while if you wish. Until all this blows over."

_She's got to keep it all together._

* * *

After he leaves she abandons her room to get a drink from the kitchen. _He is there_. In the living room, slouching on the sofa with an ill-treated pocket book – as if waiting for her. _Just as she knows he will be. _Looking like he's gearing up to rile her again. He makes a sloppy dog ear on his book and throws it on the seat, getting up on his feet. Stretching long arms out to the sides, shaking the as if to relieve tension. Like a boxer, warming up to have another go at her.

_She instinctively braces herself._

"Well, well, _well_. Don't you look radiant!?" The teasing inflection of his voice making the hairs on her neck stand up.

When she doesn't reply he simply pursues her into the little kitchen. _Just like she knew he would. _Like a yappy little dog, aggressive, ready to play rough. And in spite of the usual irritation at his little games – she finds to her surprise that she wants him there. Wants to feel his eyes on her as she leans in to grab the water-bottle from the fridge. Wants to challenge him. Fight back.

And besides; if he is there winding her up he can't be anywhere else causing damage. He can't be swindling Dewi out of her husband's fortune and he can't be buzzing around Claire.

He slants against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over a wrinkled chocolate coloured shirt as he watches her pour herself a glass of water from the bottle.

_He is beautiful. Beautiful. _Unshaven and scruffy - but soapy clean. She can smell the soap on him. He smells like Aaron, and she knows, just knows that he's stolen from the baby soap. _No tears. _That little bottle with a teddy bear on it. And it does something to her, confusing and muddling the feeling for the two of them. Aaron's intoxicatingly innocent fragrance on him, her simple love for one and her dread about the other. Like angel-wings on a hog. _It isn't right. _

He pushes a stringy strand of hair behind his ear, making it protrude slightly, grin looking slightly lopsided.

"A whole afternoon in the throws of passion with that cream puff must really agree with you Freckles…You're practically glowing – he must really be something huh?…"

Cocky and self-assured as usual, but the second that is out he's biting his bottom lip, eyes flickering to his bare feet on the stone floor. She knows he is disappointed in himself for not coming up with something worse. Not having gotten a barb in yet. Hell, he's had all afternoon to prepare and this is what he comes up with.

She slams the fridge closed, shoves her way past him, trying not to breathe in his scent. Afraid what it will do to her. The baby-soap. His skin.

She is wearing a red little top and cargo-pants that should have met its maker long ago. Her hair a tangled mess and she knows she looks like she's been screwing all afternoon. _Wants him to think that too._ For him to back off, go away and leave her alone. Let her remain here with her little pathetic life intact. But bizarrely enough, it seems to have the opposite effect. Danan just adding to the fire – only further provoking him. Egging him on.

"I don't have that high standards James, _you _ought to know that."

"Yeah, don't I just, don't I just… So Bertie Wooster snitched your wallet yet?

She stands in front of him, hand on hip. Trying to act indifferent, taking a mouthful from her glass. The water cool and metallic in her mouth. And she is tired of this. Tired of him toying with her. Tired.

"Nope… You gotten your hands into Dewi's pockets yet?"

That smirk again. She wonders how many variations of this conversation he's had in his life. In the hundreds, thousands? Every line seemingly thought out in advance, at every junction, every threshold he's got a reply ready, a witty retort to hit back with.

"Naw, gotten my hands into plenty of other places though…"

And she doesn't know what it is about that, but it's just that he is so faithful to this role he is playing. The chortle just can't be contained and she manages to spray his shirt, the water spurting out of her mouth like a big messy fountain. Over him, over herself.

"Eew! That's just not good manners Freckles… To spit at a gentleman…"

"Poor Dewi. And _you _are _**no**_ gentleman!. That's just a disgusting thing to say James!"

"You didn't use to think so…when it was _you_ who I had my hands on..."

He lets the sentence trail off and he knows what images those words plant in her mind. _He knows._ His hands, the long fingers, calloused and nimble and… _No._ She'll be damned if she's going to let him get to her this easily! The idiotic lip-licking and peering wickedly under that hopeless hair. He's _really_ got this act down.

Legendary short attention span – he's suddenly distracted by the wetness of his shirt front. He breaks the eye-contact to inspect it, pulling it forward, pinching it away from his chest. Unable to hide his irritation. _God, it wasn't even that much water._

"_Hell,_ what did I ever do to you?" He grumbles, looking completely grossed out, as he wipes at the splatter of dark spots on the brown fabric.

"So, I take it the conquest is going smoothly?" She watches him fret – amused at his fastidiousness. She's seen him in dirt encrusted clothes, looking like something that has rolled through garbage and mud. But she's not used to see him fuss over a few drops of water. Smelling like baby soap.

_No tears indeed._

"Just peachy, cupcake. Just darn peachy," he sneers in a way that tells her, perhaps it's not going too well. She hopes that Dewi is smarter than that. Smarter than to fall for his Southern smarmy seducer act. But then again – she did. _She did fall for all that._

His brows still knitted as if he's seriously upset about his stupid shirt._ Christ – he's such a baby._ It's just water for god's sake!

All of a sudden he lets go of his own shirt. Looks at her as if he's going to hit her and grabs her glass, crossly, placing it on the countertop with a loud thud. He snatches up the dish towel lying there and before she has the slightest chance to protest, he's caught her roughly around the chin with one hand. Dabbing away saliva and water with the other. Like a peeved mother who's child has tested her patience. Gruffly and with a pouty frown on his own face.

He gives her mouth one last brusque swipe and then inspects his work gravely. His coarse fingers still holding on to her chin. And then – a quick surreal kiss on an awkward spot just below her mouth. She has hardly time to sense his lips there before they have retreated.

A mistake – a reflex, just from standing like this._ Too close._

"Just be careful Freckles. Wooster ain't what he seems."

_If you only knew. _She can't believe the fact that a man as intuitive as Sawyer hasn't figured Danan out yet. He must have a blind spot. _An enormous blind spot._

Any fool would have known. But not _this_ fool.

Sawyer glares at her – just glares at her as if this is her fault. _The kiss._ Everything. And they are still standing like that, eyes locked – a stupid staring-down-contest, seeing who will budge first – when Claire trundles in with Aaron across her shoulder and Hurley trailing behind.

"Oh sorry, I didn't realize you two were here!" Claire smiles at the sight of them. But Hurley looks anything but happy.

Kate can't make out who is on the receiving end of his homicidal stare. _Him or her._ And she knows what it must look like. The two of them like that, her faced clasped between his fingers. And then, as if he comes too, he snaps into action and hurls the towel over his shoulder, releasing her with a curt:

"There, all done! Good as new!"

* * *

He storms out, leaving the three of them there. Hurley silently makes his way past both Kate and Claire towards the dry food storage, pulling out a few packs of instant noodles, tossing them on the counter top. But Kate can feel his disapproval, like a thick blanket over the room. Claire oblivious to any of that, nudges Kate with her elbow in a superbly annoying manner, right in the ribs. Hurley's eyes behind Claire's back are black. He shakes his head to himself, as if disappointed in her. And she knows he is. He's done so much for her, for all of them. He'd hate to see her complicate things. Make it messy. And he knows how messed-up they are.

_She and Sawyer. Hopeless._

"Look at you. You are _totally_ into him!" Claire quips. and she is sure she heard Hurley click his tongue.

"Tst!" She blows her off by gently prying Aaron away from her so that Claire can get herself some food. Aaron's little body, hot against her chest. The weight of him in her arms, delicious._ This can't end. She can't loose him again. _Hurley is right. She's got to keep her mind on that only.

"I have eyes! I don't know why you're fighting it. You've been here for almost half a year now. And you've just been holed up here with Danan, me and Aaron the whole time. Time to live a little! – And he obviously came here for you. Maybe he can help you forget that horrible husband of yours…"

Hurley clears his throat and she is instantly afraid that he'll say something. Come with a retort to Claire's babble. But he doesn't. He just looks at her, behind the younger girls shoulders.

_Damn Claire_, she is so sweet. She winks in a way that is supposed to be lecherous but is just exasperatingly cute on her. Shit. _If she only were her sister – for real_. The feeling of having a family, even a fake one like this – _she can't risk loosing this._

"Dude, no…" Hurley can obviously not hold back any longer, so Kate cuts in.

"It isn't that simple… He's just, he lost someone not long ago. Someone who meant everything to him. It's too complicated Claire, too hard…"

_Juliet. _He'll never forgive her. Her mere presence costing him Juliet. Costing him everything.

"Yep, complicated," Hurley concurs, nodding his head. His auburn curl loose around his face today, glossy like a prize winning puppy.

"It always is." Claire, drains the instant noodles she's been boiling, mixing them with the spices from the little sachets on a plate.

"And speaking about that ex-husband..." Kate is tired of the lies but Aarons little warm fists against her neck, reminds her that this is how it has to be. "I hate doing this to you but,... we might have to go and hide out somewhere for a while… Just for a bit."

Shit. Her lying getting worse and worse. She wonders briefly if Claire will believe any of these loosely, badly thought out stories. Hurley, perhaps sensing her hesitation, oicks up her slack.

"So the thing is,.. there's been some strange guys asking for Kate at the Emporium and here too, in the neighbourhood. It'd be better if you all lie low for some time. - Kate did you ask Danan?..."

"Yeah, that's alright, we can stay at his place… I'm so sorry Claire, but it's him, my ex, I just know it is…"

" Don't sweat it Kate. If this is how it is, this is how it is. When are we leaving?"

Easy as that. Hurley's relieved eyes meet hers again. They both mentally exhale. Claire, frighteningly trusting. Kate knows Hurley hates the lying, but he understands her. _Understands why. _Things were never that easy with her _real _family.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow after lunch... Danan will pick us up and bring us there." Aaron fusses against her chest, wants her to shift him, move onto a different position. His little legs kicking against her midriff. Strong and stubborn, a handful – the energetic little boy she knows he will grow up to be.

_With or without her. _

She could bear loosing anything. Her mother. Jack. Even Sawyer. She's already lost them and she has gotten over all that with varying degrees of success. But not him – not Aaron. She can't. She will keep them together – no matter how much it will cost her. No matter how many lies she'll have to tell. _And she tells herself that they will be alright._

Claire leads the way out to the livingroom, a plate of noodles in each hand. Hurley gives her shoulder a quick squeeze before they follow. A silent;_ Don't worry._ - _You're my people' _squeeze_._

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	9. Another night

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it…_

* * *

**Another night**

* * *

_He can't sleep that night. _

But what's new? He smokes, drinks and reads a lot of cheap paperbacks, but he can't catch a damn wink for the life of him these past few days. The panic attacks though not as frequent as before, still tend to sneak up on him and seize him by the throat. They still have a hold on him.

_It's late. Too freaking late._

It's one of those nights again and he lolls around on the porch. Swats at mosquitoes. Smokes too much. His throat hurts and his eyes feel like someone's rubbed them with sand. He is tired but freaking restless at the same time. _Sleep is impossible_. He paces around the house, fidgety and strangely agitated, smoking and dropping ashes on the floor. And time after time, he's drawn back to her door.

Like an idiotic piece of scrap-metal to a giant magnet.

_Screw this_, he thinks, as he nudges the door open with the tip of his shoe. _Wants to pester her._ Impossible to think that she might rest, carefree and relaxed in there while he has ants running up and down inside his legs. Twitchy, nervous and edgy_. All of the time_. He envies her and her apparent tranquillity. Doesn't have a plan – but her room is _irresistible_. It beckons to him.

The light is on and he half expects a vase or something to come flying across the room. Aimed at his peeping head. He has no right to be here. To see her like this.

_Too intimate_. - Like catching her in her most compromising position.

The outline of her sleeping shape on her bed. The light on the bedside table is on, casting its serene soft sheen over her. Her plump lips, pinched tight in sleep. Jaws taut as if she's grinding her teeth too. Fully dressed, curled up like a fetus on her bed. Knees so high, she's almost hugging them. Tight fists crammed under her chin. Tension painfully visible in every muscle. His envy of what he had though a carefree sleep, evaporating at the sight of her.

_Nothing relaxed about her. - Even in sleep_.

He has seen _many_ women sleep in his life. Many more than he would ever care to count. He's seen them sprawled out on their backs, taking up the whole bed, he's seen the duvet hoggers, the stomach sleepers, and his favourites; the sexy spooning types.

_But he's never seen another like her. _

The painfully, stiffly bent shape like a protective barrier. Like a frightened armadillo. Pathetic for a grown woman. The one that wouldn't stay the night. _Couldn't._ And the one time she did, that last time at the barracks it had ended in shit. _Pure shit._ She'd nuzzled up to him, he'd barely been awake. Had rolled on top of her, not even thinking, just following the wave of desire. Until it had all come to a screeching halt – he'd felt her entire body, every muscle in her body, rejecting him. Had felt her inexplicable panic._ Her; __**no**__. _

Her refusal had miffed him, hurt him and he had made some inane comment that had pissed her off. Or perhaps it was just her excuse. For not being like the others. For not being able to let go. And he wants to tell her – he wishes that he could.

_It doesn't have to be like this. _

Some son-of-a-bitch did this to her. He'd always thought it'd been that _bastard_, her step father, the one that she'd killed. It's the only thing that makes any sense. And somehow he thinks of the other little girl. Cassie's girl. And that it isn't too late. He's been so far up his own ass and the thought gives him a pang of regret. The world ain't a safe place for a little girl. He knows Cassie probably is a great mom and smart enough to stay away from the shit-heads, but still._ She'd fallen for him, hadn't she? _If that ain't a warning sign - he doesn't know what is-

He'll call _him_ tomorrow, set something up. The only one he could ask – and know that he would. He's got some money tucked away from his latest job and it'd be the least he could do. He could at least make one thing right in his shitty life.

She stirs in her sleep. And he can actually hear the unpleasant noise of her teeth gnashing together.

_It doesn't have to be like this. _

_You don't have to spend your life like this._ Haunted by some obscure incomprehensible terror of the past. So scared of the dark that she can't even get undressed, can't shut off the lights. Watchful. Distrustful, even in her sleep. _No one will hurt you now._

_I'm here._

It's a _preposterous_ thought. What the fuck of a difference does it make if he is here? He can't do anything about this. _Who she is._

He's got his own crap.

And she'd never let him in – in the first place.

* * *

_There is someone in the room._

She freezes in fear and tries to unnoticeably slide her hand under the pillow without opening her eyes. The knife, she feels the comfortingly cool surface of the handle against her fingertips and _then_ she peels open her eyes, squinting, slowly pretending to just be waking up.

"What?... What are you doing? Get out of here James!"

Anger replacing relief as she processes his presence there.

She sits up hastily, knocking down her pillow in the process and his eyes automatically fall on her hand, the knife, wide in mock shock.

"Wooh baby-girl, someone sure is jumpy… What the heck you need that the knife for!? Gonna' stab me for watching you?"

"I just might," she says as she places it on the night table. And she is only half joking. Her hands still trembling slightly. He'd really freaked her out.

He sits down, uninvited on the edge of her bed. Thrusting his fingers through his hair and she notices the dark circles under his eyes, the slightly grey sheen under his tan. He looks tired. – _Not that she cares._ But he does.

"So you wanna tell me something Kate? 'Bout what's going on?"

"I don't know what you mean…"

"Aw hell, don't play coy with me darling. I know something is up." Tossing back his head. More hair-flicking action than a cheerleader. He hasn't changed his clothes since this evening. Still in that cocoa brown shirt._ Ha _- _she guesses he survived the few drops of water then._ He is flipping the cigarette pack around in his hands. Long limber fingers. And it's grating on her nerves.

"Nothing is up."

He reclines backwards, supported on his arms and gives her a _'yeah-right!'_ glance, with that incredulous squint of the eyes.

"Widmore? Care to tell me? What the heck is Hurley snooping around some old chums of Widmore for? - I heard you guys, earlier in the kitchen, you were frigging loud. Must have wanted me to hear….So what the fuck are you running from? It ain't the law right – it's the Island-freaks ain't it?"

"You're not coming with us tomorrow. You're staying here!" she quips. A stupid knee-jerk reaction not answering his question at all..

"Yeah, I can see how you'd be confused about that darling, but – I'm _**definitely**_ coming along for this ride."

And if she could have growled as well as him, she would have. Instead she purses her lips, thinking of her next move. _He can __**not**__ come. _

"So this is that goddamm awful hubby of yours that we're running from? That your story honey? You running from the good doctor? Fucking ironic dontcha' think?!"

"This doesn't concern you, it isn't you that they're after. And what do you care anyway, _really_?"

"Like _hell_ it doesn't concern me. I'm here ain't I?" he sneers.

"Yeah, and that's the part I don't get…" And it's more a thought than something that should have been articulated. He throws his chin up. As if he is challenging her. And she guesses this is what it is. Some kind of pissing contest. Dancing back and forward trying to trip each other up. And she's been unwillingly drawn into it. She'd never wanted him here in the first place. It's just that it is easy to be flip about it when he isn't here, isn't sitting inches away from her smelling of the sweet spicy tobacco and baby soap.

"Kate, you know this can't last right?"

For an instant, she thinks he means them - him and her. _We would never have worked out_. And it stings_, like then_, smarts like someone splashing alcohol on an open wound.

"What…?" _But she knows. _She knows he's talking about this; Claire, Aaron, her playing house, playing mother. The lunacy of it all.

His hand on her bed. _Unsettling_. The golden brown of his hand against the white linen. His surprisingly long fingers drawing back and forward across its surface, almost caressing it and it perturbs her. She wishes he'd stop it.

It slides across the sheet, nearer and nearer to hers, then back again, only to move back again, in a wide circle like movement. And she thinks that if he as much as taps her she'll bludgeon him to death. She draws her own hands back to safety, wedging them between her knees.

"It ain't right. She's got the right to be with someone else – someone she can rely on. She isn't yours to hog like this. She's Jack's sister for Christ's sake!"

And this enrages her. It flares up within, with a blazing intensity that startles her. To her own dismay she hears her own voice jump up an octave, shrill and high pitched.

"He wasn't exactly great uncle material last time. What makes you think he'd be now!?"

"That's not the point - besides - people _change _Freckles."

Him, infuriatingly composed now. Looking at her as if she is the irrational one. The insane one, though this statement alone proves that it's _him_. He who's out of touch with reality.

"No Sawyer, people _never_ change."

He draws his hand across his eyes, stopping at the temple where he rubs that spot. An exasperated gesture betraying his frustration.

"This won't last and you know it. One of these days, you're gonna' be found and dragged kicking and screaming back to jail and what's the hell do you think is going to happen to them then!? They're gonna' be totally dependent on you and you won't be able to do jack shit for them. 'Sides, do ya' think Claire wanna' stick with you once she finds out you're a wanted felon, a liar and a murderer to boot. You gonna' look like one hell of a psycho-crazy lady Kate. And what's more, I reckon Jackass still deserves to know…"

"Ah, you're in a very generous mood tonight Sawyer. Since when did you ever care about Jack!?"

"I don't sweetness, but this just ain't right - to her and that little spud. You shouldn't have meddled… An' I don't get why Hurley's going along with all this bullshit! – I am _**so**_ tagging along tomorrow!"

"Are _**not**__!_" she says as if she's a seven year old girl and not an adult woman.

"Am _**sooo **_coming," he flashes upper and lower row of teeth at her in a big wide shit eating grin - looking almost happy.

"No."

"Oh yes baby."

"Ok pal, conversation over. Time to get out! Unless you want to watch me sleep."

He pulls his feet up on the bed, shoes and all, not caring if he gets her sheets dirty. He plants himself there, folding his long jean-clad limbs like a school boy so that he ends up sitting cross-legged at the edge of her bed. He lights up a cigarette, with that unshakeable confidence and leers at her. He's not going anywhere.

"I think I'll take you up on that offer Sweetheart. And then _you_ can tell me a goodnight story…"

She exhales, all the air puffing out of her, letting herself fall back on the pillow with a defeated thud that rocks the whole bed. _She can't sleep like this_. Impossible! With him here next to her.

"You – are - _**not **_- coming," she says pointlessly.

"Just watch me – will be ready an' packed by sunrise."

He peers at her, hair falling in his face. Sucking on that damn cigarette as if it was going out of fashion. She expects some kind of sexual innuendo to be thrown at her. She knows him by now and this is what he does. He's got that look. But then, what comes out, is nothing like that.

"You know Freckles… It doesn't have to be like this…" he says softly.

What? And after all the sarcasm, the sardonic banter – she doesn't know what to make of this. Him. His voice sad – _almost tender_. He has _no _right to come and just turn that around. She can't do this dance anymore. It's exhausting.

"No, this is _**exactly**_ how things have to be buddy."

* * *

Her green eyes, that warped sorrow that he can't do anything about.

He represses the urge to reach over and touch her face. Put his hand on her, like you would a skittish horse, pat her gently and murmur that everything will be ok. He quells the impulse, because seriously; _who the fuck is he to say that?_

Instead, he allows himself to fall down, backwards, right next to her, the bed shaking as he does. Stretches out his long frame, taking up more space then necessary, one arm behind his head, the other on free for smoking - or other things. He hears her irritated sigh and smiles to himself.

An image of her flashes by – too raw to think of – to insistent to ignore. Her naked back slick against his stomach, his arms heavy around her, the soft swell of her breasts pushed against his wrists. Holding on – breath in his throat. Hoping against all reason that tonight, _**tonight**_ she won't scraper off, bolt from him. The cool air against his chest and stomach as she darts up, leaving him there. _Every fucking time_.

And he hasn't had sex in what seems like for ever. The tension building up within, making him vulnerable to her. He'd had a few blank-faced women while still in LA, picked up in some shabby bar, _la-da-di la-da-da._ Fast and uncomplicated release, all leaving a trace of muggy perfume and humiliation behind.

_But this._

_He's such a wuss_. Her crumpled cargo-pants, low on her girlishly narrow hips. The one button unbuttoned for comfort but zipper zipped. And that tiny little triangle forming between button and buttonhole, tender skin and a hint of dark underwear visible. _It calls him, shouts for him._ The little red top, one shoulder strap slipping down over a freckled shoulder and the thin fabric riding up on her stomach. And that stretch of skin, white and smooth and summoning him. _Hey, remember me?…_

_And he could make a go of it._

Slip near her, creep closer, so slowly she wouldn't even know what hit her. Draw his fingertips across her stomach, slink his hand down the inviting looseness of those cargo-pants. Loose himself in her.

_He could do that._ Would have, in another time – another place. What would she do about it? _If anythhing at all. _Would she push him off, thump him across the face? One sharp crushing elbow over the nose? Shove him out of bed, rabid and affronted by his brazenness?

Somehow he doesn't think so. It's something about that desperation in her eyes. The wanting him and the shame of it.

He pictures a feathery touch that'd make her gulp in air, try to steady her breathing – try to maintain her dignity. _Never quite letting go_. Colour rising on her cheeks. Her long hair brushing against his skin, framing his face from above, like a tangled tent. And he thinks of her languorous above him, heavy-lidded determined eyes fastened on his. The never quite getting close enough – _and hell_, he'd had gone for it if he'd had the courage. If he'd have thought that it'd make them both feel better.

But truth is, he wants something simpler from her. Something so simple it seems impossible. Unattainable with her.

_All he really wants right at this moment._

Her smooth back pushed against him. Long knobbly spine against his chest. The feeling of perspiration drying on their skins, sticking together in the mellow night air, the round of her butt pushed up, fitting together, perfectly against him. The simple innocence of him, pressed against her embracing her. Not wanting anything but that. His hands clasped around hers, thumb caressing the little patch of skin between thumb and index finger_. To be able to fall asleep like that._ To finally give into the exhaustion and doze off, not worrying whether she will pull away, sneak off in the middle of the night. Not thinking of Juliet, Jack, the damned island. Just to have her. Like that.

_That. _

And he can't help it. His hand follows the memories and doesn't care that this is _not done_. That it _shouldn't _be done. It moves across the expanse of white cotton sheet between them and the tips of his fingers hover above her bare belly, barely coming in contact, the little hair on his arms standing up. And he is a frigging coward. Because it scares him.

_She scares the hell out of him._

And it's not because he suspects he is damn near to getting the capillaries of his nose crushed. _It's because of this_. The wanting to mean something to her. The wanting more from her than she can ever give. Emotionally crippled, her eyes dark and hostile, and he doesn't know if it is just wishful thinking but he senses her response, her bucking just a millimetre for him. Like a cat instinctively raising its back under a caressing hand.

And then, the bizarreness of a door slamming, someone clomping across the living room. Kate, quick as a flash, tugging down her top, and he'll be damned if she didn't just button her pants too.

"Kate! Darling, I'm hooome," in a singsong tone. "Coming in, see your light is on baby! You decent?"

_Ha! Who the fuck? _

At first he thinks it's Lord Byron coming back, but the voice and the accent is all wrong and eerily familiar. He knows that voice. He thinks he is hallucinating when ragged, shabby figure peeks through the opening of the door.

"Jimbo!? – Jimmyboy? What the hell?"

_Miles._

"Sonoffabitch! Genghis!"

It about knocks him over. _Miles_… From him - it's not a far stretch to think of Juliet. And he wonders what the fuck he is playing at, _here in Kate's bed_. He can tell from Miles stunned look that he's thinking the very same thing.

"What? I don't get it dude? What ya' doing here?" he just says. _**In Kate's bed**_**.** The question hangs in the air. The unspoken question that Sawyer can hear but Miles never articulates. _Juliet, what about__** Juliet**__ you fucking bastard?_

And he has to keep himself from blurting out. From defending himself. Juliet's with Goodwin, happy, rubbing noses with Goodwin. _And this – it means nothing._

"Just taking a little holiday. You?.... Wait a minute?... You staying here?"

"Yeah, this is sort of my home-base. I travel around, do my thing and then I come back here to this little fantabulous place. Hugo,… man what a buddy to have."

"Yeah, Hurley ain't half bad …"

Hurley, running some frigging orphanage her. Pup-pound, taking in all the scabby mongrels he can round up. Hugo, who would have thought – he'd turn out to be the hero.

"So dude, I'm a bit beat after the trip. We'll talk tomorrow. I'll just go and crash in my room… See ya' lovebirds!"

He scout-salutes them and maybe he is just confused but the look he gives him while pulling the door shut. _Condescending. _Like he really doesn't approve.

"His room?..." Sawyer turns to Kate who is looking freaking happy over his misfortune. He suspects that he is now indeed a homeless bastard.

"The guest room. That's his room – you'll have to take the sofa."

"Oh great. That torture bench, hardwood and the wafer thin mattress. Great. – Unless you gonna' offer to share this beauty with me." He gives her bed an appreciatively slap.

"Hardly."

"Maybe you'll join me out there, ease my pain a little? Soften the blow a bit?

She just shakes her head. And he thinks just as well. He'd never be able to sleep next to her hard little armadillo shape not to mention the little sharp knife under her pillow. He drives away the thought of that little bit between button and buttonhole and the vulnerable skin of her stomach. Leans over casually, planting a quick dry-lipped kiss on her cheek that she childishly wipes off as he heaves himself off the bed.

"As you wish Sugarlump. I know you'll dream of me anyways…"

"Yeah, I probably will," she says in a surprisingly sensual way. And he half expects her to call him back into bed, thinks of her smoothness beneath that flimsy ruby top. "You tend to figure heavily in my …nightmares Sawyer!"

"That's alright Sweets. I'll be right out here if you need me. Just holler and I'll turn that nightmare right into a wet…"

Her pillow hits him squarely in the face.

"Ouf! What?! Just _saying_…."

"Get out!"

* * *

_Please leave a review if you liked it. _


	10. Another guilt trip

_A/N – I've rated it M for now but in all honesty it's mostly for the inevitable swearing. Hope you all enjoy it anyhow._

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it…_

* * *

**Another guilt trip **

* * *

He stumbles out on the porch in the sharp morning light and it is - _too – damn – early_ - for the sight that assaults him.

Miles, cross legged, perched on the daybed, eating fried chicken with his fingers, a paper-wrapper of rice next to him on the white fabric of the sofa. _Too early._ Miles gnawing like a dog on that chicken bone, seemingly intent on devouring every scrap of meat, _and then some_.

Hands and mouth shiny from the oil. A flaring vision of Kate, elbow up in soapsuds, scrubbing at that damn laundry flashes by. _Miles_ – sitting there, not a care in the world, dripping oil and what-not.

_It has him seething inside_.

But he can't come nagging about some darn laundry like some old hag. _Not to Miles. _Heck, he hasn't seen the guy since,… Since _that _day_. _

_Juliet_, his Juliet dragged down into that hole. _Slipping._ And he doesn't want to think of it. That day – when he'd thought her dead and gone. Surreal enough to have Miles here eating chicken outside some poky little house in Bali, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans instead of the Dharma security uniform.

_So he damn well can't start the day bitching about the darn sofa._

"Morning sunshine!" he says instead. Plasters on a little jolly grin and sits down on the opposite chair.

Miles looks up at him, only grunting something intelligible. He puts the clean picked chicken bone down on the rice, digging at his molars with his index fingers. Occupied by something caught between his teeth. Mission completed, he crumples the paper together around the leftovers and tosses it on the little table. Folding his hands in his lap, with a priggish expression, like an old principal ready to have a go at a naughty student.

"So man – you're finding it _**really**_ tough getting over Jules huh!?" The snide comment hurts, but only because there is a grain of truth in it.

_To early in the morning for the inevitable onslaught of guilt. _

On her bed last night. His hand. It had been innocent enough and frankly it bugs him to have to take this crap from Miles without actually having reaped any benefits. For heaven's sake, he'd just _barely_ touched her stomach. Hardly scintillatingly x-rated stuff!

Still, what he'd had on his mind _had_ been.

"Nothing happened _Shortcake_…" he protests and he doesn't know why he has to make excuses for himself to _Miles_.

But then again, Juliet was _his _friend too. And Miles had been there to witness their friendship blossom into something else, something more. - No, he gets that Miles cares, he does. It's just that he'd never figured Miles to get so a darn sentimental about it.

"Yeah, sure thing Boss." Miles says dryly. "Great. - Really awesome for _you_. Getting over someone by getting under somebody new huh…"

"I didn't…." And he doesn't even know why he bothers denying it. It ain't as if it's any of Miles' bloody affairs anyhow. " Look buddy,.. nothing happ…"

"_Hepp – ep – ep –ep!!_"

Miles does some funky '_talk to the hand'_ gesture that Sawyer doesn't quite get. But that hurt look – _that_ he understands. The narrowed disapproving eyes. The obvious sarcasm, the words that mean the exact opposite of what they sound like. That he understands.

"_Just saying_, glad to see you're not moping around! Living life to its fullest! Really awesome Boss!"

And he wants to explain. _About Juliet._ Her happiness. Her and Goodwin. _Kate._ That red top. The way she does the laundry. How she doesn't sleep like normal women. And how her green suspicious eyes make him stupid, make him do stuff he shouldn't. Like come here. - But he suspects Miles would never get it, wouldn't want to understand.

_That inevitable gravitation towards her._

"Glad to hear you've missed me too Casper," he mutters instead. "So what're you up to nowadays?"

"Talking to 'deadlings' - what do you think!? Bali is a great little place for the paranormal. Before the cremations and all – pretty good business."

"Fitting... _See_, how nice it can be to catch up instead of throwing unfounded accusations around!"

Miles still glaring, leaning forward, arms supported on his knees.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm freaking glad to see you man - but _**lay off**_ the brunette - _**okay**_?!" he wheezes as if afraid to be overheard.

"Oh yeah? Ya' know I _would,_ only, I wasn't _**on **_the damn brunette. And what's your beef ? Is this 'bout her an' Namby-Pamby boy? – What is it with the goddam' love-the-snob fest?"

"Ha-_ha_."

That's all Miles says. Wryly and completely devoid of humour with emphasis on the last syllable. And it's the _way_ he says it that gets Sawyer engine really up and running. _What the f…!_

"Is _everybody_ looking out for that _milksop_?!... Man that's just swell - that guy's known you for two red hot minutes an' is already everybody's bosom buddy… You an' me… we _**only**_ go back since the fucking 70's for Christ's sake!"

Miles mean-spirited little snigger. Sawyer's sort of missed this jerk. _Sort of._

"_Man_ - are _you _dumb!!!" His cow-licked head bobbing with held back laughter. He flexes his fingers in front of him.

"What?!" Sawyer puts his feet up on the little wooden table, obstinately crossing his arms across his chest. His heavy work shoes making a clonking sound as they hit the surface, accidentally kicking down Miles' discarded wrap. The corners of his mouth dragging downwards in the budding progress of what promises to be a proper sulk.

Miles just raises one of those funny eyebrows he's got, and does a little hand gesture waving his pinky finger. Sawyer guesses this is a Californian thing, all the stupid signs instead of frigging talking.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? That _Braille_ for asswipe?"

"Damn you are thick! How _you_ ever managed to become head of security is beyond me! - He's _**g-a-y**_ you _dumbass_! He and Kate – duh, I don't know, like; _**not happening**_." Voice rising into falsetto at the last 'not happening'.

_And then the glee._

"You believed that? You _**did**_, didn't you!? You big fat jabrone! – Are you freaking blind dude? Kate is good – I give her that!"

Miles is giggling openly now. And Sawyer, though he should be pissed – pretends to be too, finds his heart lifting at the thought. Kate and that guy – _hah _- not an item. The afternoon love fests, clearly not _that_. And he'd like to jump up and down with the sudden inexplicable joy that washes over him. Though why on earth that would matter to him now – he doesn't know. It's not like he's planning on sticking around.

But this, her and that guy in her bedroom, had been some ruse to…_to do what?!_

She'd said nothing to lead him to believe anything else. She'd not even hinted that they might not be romantically involved. He figures that there are only two possible explanations.

Either she is trying to keep him at arms length. Or; she is trying to make him jealous.

_And his money is on the latter._

Just from the fact that she hadn't maimed him last night. _His wayward hand on her naked stomach._ The tiny little lift of her back – meeting his fingers. Yep. In fact, since he'd obviously survived that – he'd feel pretty safe laying down a substantial wager on the latter.

And he forgets that he is supposed to look piqued – a huge smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He shifts the position of his feet on the table. Lodging one on top of the other, crossed by the ankles. Crossing and uncrossing his arms.

"It's great that Danan's gayness brings you so much joy dude but stay off her okay!…"

Miles scowling at him doesn't help at all. The smile is full-blown now and he can feel his mouth twitching, wanting to bare both rows of teeth.

"Since when did Freckles become your goddamn concern anyhow Uncle Ho?"

"Oh I don't know. Hmm, because I could not possible care about anybody except myself huh?! Is that what you think?! Just back the hell _off_ her okay! We don't need you to swipe in here with all of your shit!"

Sawyer is taken aback by Miles uncharacteristically strong reaction. He'd always thought Miles a pretty cool cat – disregarding the never-ending bitching and whining that is.

"_Nothing_ is going on alright!? Why dontcha' go talk to some dead people instead of getting up in my hair about my own damn private affairs?!"

"Yeah, I might as well man. It isn't all that different from talking to you..." Miles grumbles. "Look we just don't need that crap now. She's just trying to stay together with the Aussie and her kiddie. And by the way, your _'nothing'_ last night looked a whole lot like _second _base to me!"

"T'was nothing - I tell you. Hell, I've been over her for years.."

"Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Yes" Miles says in a bored, monotone voice. " You are over her. _**Sure!**_ It's like no more than two years since you got totally piss-drunk and almost bawled over this chick!"

"What the hell are you talking about Shorty?!"

"New year's eve 1975, just before you settled in with Jules. Man that was a fucking miserable evening. Plenty of tears in the good old Dharma-Whisky that night – but great to hear that you are _**over**_ her. "

For once, Sawyer is speechless. He has no recollection whatsoever about that night. It had all been a big black blur. He clinches his jaws together. Though from what he remembers, the following new year's eve had been a whole lot better. That one he'd actually remembered. Juliet incredibly hot in a red dress and inexplicably _his. _

Miles shoots up, wiping his oily hands on his dark blue jeans. His little wicked devil's face with the black eyes glittering. _Evil personified._

"Oh and the _combing_ the entire island in freakin' _**grids**_! Day out and day in, week in week out for three whole fricking years! Who the hell does that? _Grids_! And it wasn't Hurley you were hoping to find either. Look - you can drop that whole act. I _**know**_ you had a thing for her – just don't go there again - That's _all_ we're asking."

"_**We?**_"

"Yeah, me an' Hugo. On the phone first thing this me to keep an eye on you. See that you don't fuck things up for Kate, and Claire. And the way I see it, Hugo has good reason to worry. And he doesn't even know where I found_ you_ last night. – Just leave it be dude. We only have this – don't screw it up for everyone just to get in some chick's pants."

"Wasn't planning to…" he gnarls,

"Good. We're clear then." Miles says with a smugness that makes Sawyer forget that they were ever friends. That he used to be Miles' boss. - _Asshole._

"That girl is a mess, I should know, I red her file like years ago and I still remember all that crap. Most screwed up of the bunch. - But the _Aussie _on the other hand – now _her _I like" Miles adds with a vile snicker as he gets off his seat. " Totally mackable!"

Sawyer is glad he doesn't quite understand the exact meaning of that. Though he gets the gist. Kate's off limits in Miles book and Claire is hot. _Got it._

He watches as Miles' makes his way through the courtyard, occasionally turning to flash him an ugly sly grin.

_It's too damn early for this!_

And he's got to go out. _Make that phone call._ Like he'd promised himself last night. The thought that if he could help it, Cassie's girl wouldn't grow up to be the type of woman that sleeps like a damn clam. She'd be a girl that hogs the bed, arms and legs like an X – not giving a damn who she kicked. _She'd feel safe._

He has no idea if throwing money on the problem, will make the real problem go away. _The fact that he's not there_. That he's lost the chance to be a part of that little girl's life a long time ago. But he figures, it's better than nothing.

* * *

It's not even nine o'clock yet when he returns back. Feeling like he's somewhat accomplished something.

He'd gotten his phone call done and taken a quick swim in the Emporium pool. Water still cool, not yet warmed by the morning sun. Leafs and flowers still floating about on the surface, the pool-boy not having arrived for the morning clean-up yet.

And the phone call. - _He'd answered._

Confused, perplexed and Sawyer guesses, a little _drunk_. Hell, not that that's any of his business – the man can drink all day long for all that he cares. He'd slurred a bit, and asked; _'why me'?_ And frankly Sawyer had not known quite how to answer that. It was humiliating enough to ask for the favour. It's just that with Kate here, a wanted felon, it isn't as if he's got plenty of other options. Not many friends around. And at the base of it all, he finds to his surprise that he trusts the Doc. Trust being an outlandish notion perhaps, but he does.

The thought of a bunch of money all of a sudden showing up in Cassidy's bank account up in Albuquerque –has him elated. Makes him feel lighter than he has in a long, long time. Absolves a tiny speck of the huge mountain of guilt he lugs along wherever he goes.

* * *

He hears her in her bedroom when he arrives back at the house, apparently tossing things around like a burglar. And he can't help himself. He wants to look at her.

The door is half open and he sees rummaging around in the drawers, stuffing her things into a small suitcase. She doesn't notice him. Too caught up in the simple task of throwing random stuff on the floor. Her hair a long curly tangle on her back. And the dress she's wearing, one of those simple little things, straps across the shoulders and long enough to cover her knees.

Her purse upside down on the bed and all the little mysterious things that are essential for a woman's survival, spread out on the sheet.

Lipstick, a little mirror, keys, papers, crumpled tissues, matches, a little penny pouch and a Canadian passport. _Her passport._

_Ha._

And he doesn't know why, but he _has to_ get his hands on it. _Faster than sin. _He moves silently across the floor, his eyes on one thing and one thing only. That passport.

And he must have been a bit distracted because he doesn't see it coming. The tackle from his right. Hard, lean girlish body crashing into him, making him topple over on the floor. The only thing he thinks of is holding on to that passport.

"Give me that!"

"Come and get it darling!"

They grapple on the floor like savages and he doesn't know how but he manages to get up and away, holding the passport above his head like some stupid trophy. And just one step out from her bedroom door she lunges herself after him, arms wrapped around his legs, making him fall hard. He strains to turn around so that he ends up on his back. Her on top, deranged, clawing at the passport.

"Gimme'!…" _Desperate._

She must really not want him to look at that passport.

"What Freckles? Bad photo?" he pants, trying to grip her arms with just one hand. He doesn't want to hurt her. But she, she doesn't care the least if she looses a tooth over that damn passport.

Frantically fighting. A whirlwind of arms and legs. A rabid wild expression on her face that he'd have loved to see under other circumstances. Making him think of another fight, another struggle a long time ago. The rustling of leaves and twigs. Her chest against his. The imminent danger of sharp elbows and fierce girl-fists. On the island. And he feels almost nostalgic about the whole thing. - They are both so screwed up.

"Hell, you sure are private 'bout that passport..." his voice raspy from the exertion of keeping her ferocious, hard little knuckles away from his face while hanging on to his loot.

_Shit. She's loosing it._

"Give. It. To. Me." The words comes out in little huffs that has him thinking of something different altogether. And in spite of it being less than pleasant to be pummelled by her, he finds himself enjoying the weight of her on him. The tomboy from the island.

_He loves this. _- The primitive storm raging in her eyes.

" Oh, I see what this is… Wet your appetite last night and now you're going for the whole meal? Sorry honey, this buffet is closed for breakfast!" He struggles now, really struggles to keep it away from her.

The hard squeeze of her thighs against his midriff, her trying to hold him into place. Perhaps that's when, in that instance when he gives into the feeling of her, that she yanks the passport back. Promptly tucking it down her dress front. Swatting his hands away as she does.

Then suddenly – unexpectedly - a standstill. They are both wheezing for air. _A short mutual time-out_. Her sitting astride him, carrying her weight up by her hands placed on the floor on each side of his head. Her blue cotton dress shoved up around her thighs.

_What the heck is so important about that damn passport?_

* * *

_Leave a review if you liked it. Chapter 11 coming up very soon…_


	11. Another's name

_Wow, thanks for all of the reviews! So grateful for each of them! – And I had this chapter ready – really, I did. But then, I revised a few bits…and then a bit more and then…well that's what happened. _

_Dela, you're right, the plot is totally confusing – I realized that when I read it back. Hopefully it will become a little bit clearer in the following chapters. Not my strength as a writer I'm afraid. Ought to stick to one-shots._

_But anyhow; here goes… - hope it doesn't disappoint._

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it…_

* * *

**Another's name**

* * *

_Her passport._

Safely tucked into her cleavage, held in place by the bra. Chafing against the skin. But she doesn't care.

She's got it back.

She just stops to catch her breath. Her hair sticking to her forehead and neck and the back of her dress drenched in perspiration. Lets her guard down for a second and immediately – _**wham!**_ In one swift forceful movement he flips them around. His hands firm on her upper arms, almost slamming her against the floor. Her sweaty back against the cool stone surface.

Him in control.

_Groundhog Day_. A repetition of something. She knows she's done this before. Been in this exact position before. Only the place is different. The surface different. Stone floor instead of muggy jungle underbrush.

He smiles maddeningly above her_. Of course he does._ He always does. His chin inches away from her face. The dense dark and blondish stubble shimmering against his skin. And she thinks she is _too_ damn close if she can see every little hair.

Her palms are itching to reach up and wring his stupid neck. If only she could get her hands out of his iron grip. Her bare feet flat on the floor trying to heave herself up, straining against his weight. Only managing to entice an even wider smile from him.

He throws his head backwards, perhaps to get the hair out of his eyes without letting go of her arms. And all she can think of is that spot, just below the chin where the skin is thin and his pulse visible. _And she is so close_. That hateful compulsion to lean up and taste him _there_ – bewildering.

"_Get off me!!_" she hisses, bucking against him in another effort to make him budge. Afraid that Claire will come out, see them like this. Even more afraid of herself, her own impulses. The feeling of him above her, not entirely distasteful.

He puts the mass of his weight on his hold around her wrists. She wriggles, trying to eel herself out, trying get a good angle to kick him in the nuts. But he is one step ahead of her the whole time, his leg hooks around hers so that she can't cause much damage. Realizing that it's futile to fight his lockdown on her, she pretends to give in. Bides her time instead, until she can catch him off guard.

And the way he slowly angles his big egocentric skull downwards, so that he can stare at her, all compelling slate-blue eyes. Thinking that he has won. He shakes that big shaggy head lazily, a silent_ 'no- not done with you yet',_ making his sopping wet hair graze her face. A waft of chlorine mixed with peppermint, like he's gone for a swim and just brushed his teeth.

"Lay off it James, it's enough… Please just leave us alone! Go away, go somewhere else - you'll ruin everything!"

"_Yeah?... _Nope. No. Don't think so. I'm tagging along Sweets. 'Sides, I reckon you actually want me to... and I'm packed and ready!"

"Too bad you're not coming then!"

He's not dumb. He's anything but stupid. And he thrives on this. Loves this.

"Oh yes baby, I'm _coming_. But not for _you_ so dontcha' worry. I'm schlepping along for Gatsby – just keeping an eye on him is all. – He's up to something alright. Reckon he's no good …"

_Oh. Oh. Outrageous_. _Calling the kettle black and all that..._ She tries yanking her arms out of his hold. Kicking her bare feet in another fruitless attempt to throw him off. His mouth, despicably beautiful. And she can't do anything about it, the way her eyes slip down to his lips. A tiny speck of toothpaste on his bottom lip.

"But - _**you**_** – **you are 'good' - are you!!?" The words grate in her throat.

He doesn't miss a thing. _Not a thing._ He quickly tucks that lip in between his teeth, tongue visible for just a second, one swift lick removing the white spot. Eyes fastened on hers, incandescent and wicked. So near, she could just raise herself up a little and… _No. Hell no._

"You _**know **_I am…" That snide smile.

_Focus on his chin, on his chin._ Nothing else. But the memory of the rasping of thousands of little sharp hairs against her face. _Shit. _No. It's just hormones talking. It isn't real.

The front door flies open and Miles with a deadpan expression has to literally step over them there on the floor to get by. He hardly looks at them there entwined in a pile of legs and arms, just gingerly lifts his sneaker over them.

"Awesome work dude" He says with a tired voice, as if jaded by all the horrible things he's seen in his life. "Great job in laying off the brunette - mauling her on the living room floor. Classy. Why didn't I think of suggesting that?! – And Kate – really great. You said he's here to wreck things…I was trying to help you, but whatever… seems like you have it under control."

He slams the door to his room shut behind him and she sees Sawyer's mouth moving as if trying to think of something to shout after Miles. Failing that, he returns his attention to her.

"_You_ think I'm here to _wreck _things?" Incredulous.

"Aren't you?"

"When did I ever hurt you Kate?"

When he… when he took a big jump off that helicopter for one. Leaping at the opportunity to get away from her. When she came back to find him in love with Juliet. The;_ we would never have worked out. _But she doesn't say that, she bites her tongue. Because she'd hurt him too – she knows that. Her inconsistency, her struggle to stay away from him. Wanting something else, something safer.

Serious now, not a hint of a smile. His head dips down, craggy face too close to hers, framed by stringy wet hair. She pushes her head sideways, away from him, his mouth and his eyes. A gust of hot breath on her cheek, lips almost touching her ear. She can sense them, dry and soft against her skin. Chlorine, sweet clove tobacco and peppermint.

_Can't stand this. Can't do this. _

"I ain't the one you ought to be wary of Freckles, and Danan ain'_t_ who he says. He's some lowlife crook – I can feel it," he murmurs. And it should be forbidden to murmur like that against someone's ear. The light bristle of his stubble irritating her. But the flush of heat in her belly – irrefutable

"Takes one to know one."

"That's right baby."

The breathing heavy. His. Or perhaps that's her imagination, his mouth being so near to her ear. She tries to pry him away, wedging her elbow and entire arm against his chest in a strange twisted angle. To create some space. To dispute the indisputable.

She wants._ Him. _No. _No._ Not happening.

"And that thing you pulled last night, you try something like that again… and _I'll_…"

"What? Try what thing darling?" Obscenely innocent. Mouth coiled at the corners – anything but innocently.

Quick as a viper, the hand that snakes under the hem of her dress. Taking advantage of the little space there is between them. Her damn heart that skips more than a few beats at the sensation of skin against skin dashing by, upwards. The skirt of her dress flicked over her stomach. It's all so fast, she hardly has time to register it. To acknowledge that he has let go of one of her hands.

"You mean something like this? …"

The warmth of his palm, pressed just below her belly button.

"Is that it?...." And it's funny – because she is not the one who gives away that sharp, audible intake of air. That _'huh'_. It's him – all him. The surface; all smooth confidence. His Adam's apple dipping deep as he swallows hard - the only thing betraying him.

The rush of anger, mixed with something else. But she'd never admit to it. Never.

"I thought you said the _'buffet'_ was closed!?"

The base of his palm right in the middle, solar plexus, long fingers reaching up. Fingertips moving slowly like seaweed in the gentle tide, stroking against her ribs. It would be so easy to give into it. _To let him._ She could get up now, throw him off. She doesn't know why she can't move.

"Yeah, _mine_ is baby. But yours, hell, I reckon _yours_ is wide open…" Brash fingers advancing upwards.

And hell, no. This is something else. He isn't caressing her, isn't feeling her up!

_**He's frisking her!**_

_The passport. _

It isn't as if she _wants_ to, plans to… it comes out of nowhere.

She feels him nudging at the edge of the passport-cover – _and her instincts kick in._ Head rammed forward, upwards with a vicious force that takes her by surprise.

_The sound sickening. _

Her brow making crushing contact with his nose and from her own throbbing pain she deduces with satisfaction that he must hurt considerably more than she does.

"Aw, fuck!!! What the!...." He darts up in a sitting position, straddling her now, clutching his nose with one hand. The other still pressed against her abdomen to keep her away from him now. "_Shit! _What the hell was that for?!…"

"Just padlocked my buffet... that's all."

She thrusts him off her, both hands on his chest making him roll over on his back still clasping his nose. She struggles up on her feet, flipping the skirt of her dress back down. Stalks off in a strut towards her room, not even turning around to look at him. Hoping it hurts. _Like hell._ Her hand on her chest, feeling the stiff outline of the passport.

_Safe._

_-----------------_

Danan arrives after lunch, just as he'd promised. He drives a large six seated Toyota, sort of like a fancy version of the local minibuses. It's high and sturdy enough for the conditions of the roads in the remoter areas of the island.

She drags out their packing in the little alley outside their house and he helps her stow it in the back going on about some guy he's just met.

Sawyer is nowhere to be seen and hope soars. He's probably off somewhere putting ice on his punched up nose. Licking his wounds. _Perhaps he's changed his mind._ Perhaps he'll stay away now.

They all get in. Danan in the driver's seat, Hurley next to him. Dewi and Miles in the far back seat, animatedly discussing the local bar-scene and her and Claire with Aaron in the middle row.

_And of course._

The very _second_ that Danan puts the key in the ignition, the door is yanked open and Sawyer, clumsy and far too large, jumps into the middle row, squashing her and Claire to the right side of the car.

"Phew, almost missed you there!" he says cracking a smile towards no one in particular, totally oblivious to the fact that they are now bunched up like sardines next to him.

His nose is red and swollen, a little piece of cotton visible in one nostril.

"Dude what's up with the shnooz?" Hurley asks looking only vaguely concerned. Sawyer shrugs and makes himself comfortable. Cramming Kate even further sideways towards Claire on the already jam-packed seat.

And she hopes the nose is still throbbing with pain. At least a little.

-----------------

_Phew._

He'd made it. He was sure they'd left without him. Seems he's not exactly _Mr. Popular_ these days.

He slides the car door shut and Danan turns on the engine and manoeuvres the large SUV out of the narrow alley way. Sawyer winds his head around to check out who else is in the back row of the car. It's like the frigging Brady bunch out for a picnic.

_Damn..._

"Jim!? What are_ you_ doing here?!"

Shit. And it's Dewi. Yeah, hell – _of course_ it is. But he finds himself fast, turns around mid-fall and ends up on his feet, like he always does.

"Hi there beautiful! Well if I'd known you'd come, I'd have dressed up!"

"You two know each other?" Danan asks without turning his head, concentrating on _not _running over a bunch of school kids in their red and white uniforms.

"Sure thing. Right Dewi!?"

Hell, he hasn't told her that he knows her brother – then again the topic never came up. But there is something else he's missing here. Her expression, baffling; her pretty face paler than usual and her cheeks covered in angry red blotches. Looking extremely cross.

"You said you didn't know another LaFleur!"

And there is an underlying accusation there. _Of what?_ He just looks at her, smiling, waiting for some more clues because hell, he ain't following. W_omen! _Hurley has turned around too – sucking in both upper and bottom lips. Eyelids clipping nervously. Like a big anxious bullfrog.

"You said you didn't know a Canadian LaFleur! _**Remember,**_ that first time we met!? And here you are with Kate – and evidently you _know_ her right?!"

_Kate. The passport. __**The fucking gall of her!**_

So that's it. She's stolen _**his**_ name.

_**His **_fucking name.

The name that he would have given Juliet. _**Their**_ name. If he'd ever gotten around to propose to her, gotten the bloody ring out of its hiding place. If he hadn't been so hesitant, such a big spineless sissy.

_How dare she use it?! For her fake damn passport._

He turns to her. Wants to, reprehensible as it is, actually wants to hit her. Her eyes open wide in alarm. Shamefaced. Scared. _As she should be! _Damn her!

That should have been Jules' name. Should have been. Had he been man enough to do the right thing. He swallows the emotions. Pushes his anger and his own undeniable guilt to the side. She'll never live this one down. Hell no.

"Well I'll be damned honey! If I didn't know better I'd think you still hold a candle for me… Imagine that, … keeping my name after the divorce… Touching!"

Kate, having regained her composure, glares back at him – face void of emotion. She doesn't even blink.

Danan throws a quick glance backwards at Kate. Obviously it's the first thing he's heard about it too. Sawyer wills him to watch the goddamn road instead, cars and motorbikes swerving around them like lunatics, crisscross, zigzagging between each other on the narrow potholed street.

"You never said anything about being…" Danan mumbles.

_Yep, not feeling so damn close to her now – are you?!_

"You _**two**_ were married?" Claire touches Kate's arm, clearly confused. " Kate, is that true? And what about this Jack guy – the one that's after you? You've been married to both of them?"

"Who's _Jack_? " Danan butts in but no one pays him any heed. "You said it was Claire's… Someone after Cla… Who…"

_Ha._ _Well this is fun._

"Not at the same time! It wasn't as if I was married to both at the same time." Kate blurts quick as a flash in Claire's direction. He has to smile at her, thinking on her feet. And it's like they've been thrown into a tango, to perform in front of a large audience. Neither of them knowing the first thing about it, where to put their feet and at what point to turn. Alternating between ungainly stumbling and graceful twist and turns.

"But not far between. _Freckles_ here ain't one to linger that's for sure. Out with the old, in with the new. _Ain't _that so Sugar?" He squeezes her knee amicably and she swipes the intruding hand away, instantly. Giving his nose a pointed look.

_Fair warning._

He watches Claire's stunned expression with delight._ Yeah Mamacita, you ought to be more careful who you trust around your baby. _

"But you were married to both of them… Why didn't you tell me? You said you guys weren't together…that it was just a physical thing…the tent and all that?"

_Haha. Big sis not looking so good now huh? _

"It was," he nods earnestly. "Reckon she married me just for the se…"

Kate cuts him off while poking one razor-sharp elbow between his ribs.

"It didn't last long. I came to my senses pretty soon. Both times."

Claire gives him one long look and nods as if this makes perfect sense. Frankly a bit insulting. Kate is good. She really has this one wrapped around her little finger. Seems to swallow every ridiculous lie that she spews out.

And he still can't quite believe that Claire's never looked Jack up. Hell, it wouldn't take much research to find out that Christian Shepherd had a legitimate son. A few clicks on Google, that would probably suffice. People trusting Kate blindly - he just doesn't get it.

_Kate LaFleur. _Even the name is fucking ludicrous. Who the heck would buy that!?

Sawyer looks back quickly. Dewi's face vacant, sitting there in complete silence with her arms crossed. Her lips curled into a little acrid pretend-smile. _But what can she say? _She's the one who's married after all and she'd never asked him about his circumstances. And in Kate's little _lala-make-believe_ land, at least he's divorced. Thankfully.

"Come on honey pie!... It could have been worse... I could have turned out to be a _wanted_ felon." He gives her his best 'not–such-a-bad-guy' eyes, flashing the dimples for added effect. She doesn't look all that impressed and Kate jams her fingers in the cleft between his and her thigh, pinching him so hard he has to bite his tongue not to yell out loud. _Fuck -she's brutal!_

"But your name?… You said _his l_ast name's Ford," Claire says weakly, not ready to let this one go yet.

_Yeah, right, explain that one my dear,_ he thinks. And Kate, hands folded primly in her lap just shrugs and says:

"Honestly Claire, if you'd been married to him, would you tell?... It wasn't exactly my proudest moment…"

_**What?!**_ First she steals his name, then she tramples all over it with her filthy little feet. He'd have made a _great _husband, if only her and her goons hadn't come stampeding back into their life, wagging nuclear bombs and what-nots.

Hurley has turned around completely in his seat at the front, with his arm around the neck-rest, hugging its back. Obviously not amused by the lies being thrown hither and dither in the car._ Their little games._

"That doesn't make sense,.. I'm your sister and I mean, why would you _keep_ his surname if you were ashamed of it?"

_Damn, _Claire is a sharp one behind all that blond cuteness. But he's curious too. Why would she choose that alias? It just makes no sense. He's both pissed and strangely flattered at the same time.

"Well, I had the passport and it seemed a hassle to change it. I was going to,.. I just hadn't gotten around to it… It didn't seem important now that we're not together anyway… didn't think he'd show up here. It's not like I invited him!"

"So _who_ is it actually that you guys are running from? And who is this Jack guy?" Danan gives it another go but he's really not the focus of anything here. Even Kate ignores her buddy. Hurley just '_ehems_' and Miles sighs heavily. They have obviously pulled a ton of wool over that poor bastard's eyes. And right smack in the centre of this is Kate. Some obsession about a child that isn't hers. That doesn't belong to her.

Sawyer leers at her, sitting there with a proper pout next to him.

"But you _kept_ the name! If that ain't romantic, I don't know what is Babycakes…" He says nudging her leg with his thigh, pushing at her. Noticing with ill contained mirth how her periwinkle blue cotton dress slips up above her knee as he moves. He knows she'd have gladly clubbed him to death had she'd had the opportunity. She tugs the hem down with a cold expression, seemingly set on keeping up appearances while he is feeling more relaxed by the minute.

"Perhaps you're still hoping for a reconciliation Sweets?" He prods her teasingly with his shoulder. Loving how she smoulders at this. Raspberry red lips pursed like a little sulking girl. The splatter of freckles across her nose - Pippi Longstocking, without her spotty horse and her damn monkey.

"You obviously _are _Jim…" Dewi says dryly behind him.

_He's lost that mark._

And he thinks yeah, what the heck. He'd never had been able to go through with it _anyhows_, rich Aussie hubby or not. _She'd seemed a decent girl._ Sweet enough and he just hadn't been able to put his heart and soul into this con.

_He must be loosing his edge. _

The only one in the car, reasonably cool is Miles, just sitting back looking bored and mildly put out._ The weird loyalty towards Juliet…_ He doesn't understand it.

The trying to intervene. The caring what the heck he does and with who. It's completely out of character. It jives badly with the guy who lived a few houses away from his Mom and Pop for three long years, never breathing a word about it.

The only thing he can imagine is that Miles some kind of vested interest here.

The way they are living a quiet sort of freakish family life her. Like they are re-enacting the whole hippie-collective thing. Hugo, Claire, Kate and strangely enough; Miles too. Maybe that's it? Maybe it's the coming and going as he wants, still having a home of sorts to come back too. It hurts a bit to think that Miles is so sure _he'd _screw it all up. He wonders what sort of crap Kate's been feeding him. She's clearly willing to do anything to hang on to her fraudulent bond with Claire and Aaron.

_And in his opinion, it isn't right._

There is a large part of him that _wants_ Kate to be found out. To be caught in her lies. He wants to wreck it for her. _For Juliet's sake._ For just clomping in and shattering all that they had. The only thing holding him back is Claire and her kid. And maybe the thought of Hurley and Miles too to be honest.

_Just then._ The answer to Miles strange affiliation with this rag-tag group of strays. Unfolding in front of his very eyes.

Miles shifts in his seat next to Dewi. He leans forward, arms on the seat in front of him on Claire's frail shoulders. Ever so gently he pushes away a strand of blond hair, whispering something in Claire's ear. _Something that makes her smile_. A wide toothy smile. And that unfamiliar softness in his black eyes as he slants back in his seat.

_Ah._ Yes. And that's where it is.

_The prompt for his bizarre behaviour._ The motivational factor. Doesn't want any trouble with Kate, _because_ – of her. Claire.

It's actually sort of sweet - at least _someone_ is enjoying this trip. Though frankly, he feels pretty darn good himself right now. Delighting in the adrenaline rush of watching Kate trying to juggle the lies around, trying to keep the illusion alive.

Now, if only he knew what the hell they were all running from.

And what the heck Danan wants from them. _No one_ is this nice for free. The escorting them across the whole freakin' island. _For what? _

And her. Sitting there next to him, the warmth of her thigh against his, burning through his jeans. The car's air-conditioning doing _nothing_ to relieve the heat. It conjurs up an image of her, on the floor this morning. Combative, feral but strangely delicate underneath him. It makes his mouth go dry and he wishes he'd brought some goddamn water for the trip.

_She's too close._ Not close enough. Stubbornly looking out Claire's side of the car window. Dark hair cascading down her shoulders looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

She _stole_ his name.

Like a damn bandit – and what's even more intriguing, the way she _really_, really hadn't wanted him to find out. _Ha._

"_Thief!_" he exhales, just loud enough so that she will catch it. She and no one else.

And the quickest of smiles, just a speedy tug of the mouth dashes by so fast he almost thinks he's imagined it.

He draws his arms out in front of him, downwards. Pretending to stretch them, letting his finger slide across a freckled knee as if by accident. He feels her leg spasm next to him. But her face is turned towards Claire on her other side. Looking at the passing scenery, pretending not to notice. Her hands clinched hard, knuckles white against the blue of her dress.

_Nah, he's not lost it_. Still got it.

Still got her.

* * *

_Review if you liked it!_


	12. Another destination

_Sorry if it took a while to update. Life kind of took over for a while…_

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it…_

* * *

**Another destination **

* * *

The road winds and swerves across the extravagant, hilly landscape. The drama of the barren volcano slopes, the terraced rice fields and the stretches of emerald green patches of jungle. They pass sleepy little villages, the peasants toiling knee-deep in their paddy fields. The people here, never forgetting the gods, the little elaborate altars erected everywhere. The women balancing their heavy burdens on proud, majestic heads held high, walking gracefully at the edge of the road. Their innate beauty, sublime in their colourful lace blouses and sloppily tied batik sarongs, dark hair adorned with flowers, A gentle sensual roll of the feet, fluid steps as they walk. The straggles of school children all giggling gap-toothed innocence, walking hand in hand on dirt roads in their immaculate red and white school uniforms. Their exuberance infectious, forcing her to smile at them through the car window. The little girls with red ribbons in their plaits, dangling on their backs, the boys, water combed, all skinny ungainly legs and arms, chasing each other, waving to the car as they pass by.

And she thinks, she could have lived here. Been happy here. She had felt safe, somehow at peace until _he_ showed up.

She wonders if he somehow led those people to her and Claire. _The Widmore people._ Maybe not wittingly, but still. They could have followed him here. Then again, it wouldn't have been that hard to find them. – They'd only have to look up Hugo Reyes, which is apparently exactly what had happened seeing as they came knocking at Hurley's resort first. She knows she should be grateful that it wasn't the law, out _for her_, but somehow, the thought of some unknown threat, someone looking for Claire is far more terrifying.

Claire has nodded off beside her. Her young unlined face; serene and relaxed, wheat blonde strands of hair spread over the head rest. Her lips, naturally red and plump just like Aaron's. _Her_ Aaron - asleep in his sling against his mother's chest. Completely at peace, a little floppy arm sticking out. She carefully reaches over to tuck it in. Unable to resist sneaking a quick touch of his cheek, red and sumptuous in sleep. _The desperate love for him. _She can't loose him. She'd have nothing. Nothing.

And she wonders how long she'll be able to keep this up. Will she watch him take his first wobbly back-heavy steps, will she watch him learn to talk? Will she be allowed to see him grow into that breathtaking little toddler that she knows he will be one day?

She imagines a life without him. _Can't._

The man beside her. Damn him for playing with this. His clear-cut profile, the obstinate jaw with that swanky pull of the mouth giving way to dimples. The one he thinks women will fall for. And he's probably right too. But she won't be one of them, she has too much to loose.

Hurley and Danan are deep into some discussion about real estate development. And the two behind her, eerily silent. When she checks on Miles, she notices that he has headphones on and his eyes are closed as if he's sleeping. Dewi returns her look, her beautiful face, the slanted black eyes impassive and unresponsive. Like a Siamese cat.

_And Kate feels for her. _

Whatever she had thought Sawyer could give her, she has had a rough awakening. And she wishes she could tell her. _This is what he does._ He draws you in, makes you feel special, makes you feel like you mean something to him. That way he's got, the weird off-handed pull he possesses. That effortless ability to offend you and turn you on at the very same time. The exploitation of his beauty, squeezing every drop out of it – making it come off as spontaneous and unforced when every little move, every little word is meticulously planned.

He lies and cons women for money and it's _nothing _personal. What is worse is the feeling of being scammed for nothing_._ _For fun? Some absurd idea of revenge? For the heck of it?_ That's worse than loosing a few pennies of your rich husband's nest-egg.

The bulk of his thigh, solid against her own, purposely pressing into her. And she doesn't even have to look at him to know that he is watching her. The whole way. Just sits there in silence next to her. Looking like something is brewing within. She knows this, with _his _name - it's far from over.

_Oh. He'll enjoy this._

_God,_ he'll taunt her endlessly. She doesn't know why it is so humiliating considering she didn't have anything to do with that fake passport. Maybe because it's not about the name. It runs deeper for her - something about the completely unjustified hurt she feels about Juliet – and him. The fact that they had had a proper life together.

Just knowing that he is capable of that, and her own sense of failure. She remembers the time at the barracks,_ a million years ago_. Him, baring himself to her, allowing himself to be seen vulnerable and naked. Offering her something that she hadn't dared to even consider. Hadn't dared take seriously. _The playing house with him_

She'd been too blind to realize that he'd actually been genuine about it.

The air-conditioning of the car is blowing straight against her forehead, giving her a headache. Or perhaps it's from sitting next to him. That hopeless insufferable craving that just the soft cotton of his shirt sleeves against her bare skin can awaken. She hates it. Having him around is like trying to manoeuvre across a mine field. A danger zone that she can't afford to court now or ever, much as it fascinates her. The undeniable pull of him, just a part of her own predisposition for self destruction.

She wishes she could just throw him out of the car. Or call Widmore's guys and ask them if they want to pick him up and leave the rest of them alone. They can have him for all that she cares.

But they'd probably not want him.

_More trouble than he's worth._

He falls asleep too. His head bobbing and accidentally leaning on her. She shakes him off so his chin falls forward. Feeling only slightly sorry for him. His big head like a fruit too heavy for its stem. Insistent too, he returns, making himself comfortable on her bare shoulder. And she could have sworn his lips edged across her skin just for a split second, the way he inhales deeply. And glancing down at his poor swollen nose, red and slightly clown-like, she doesn't have the heart to push him off again.

_Definitely more trouble than he's worth._

* * *

They arrive just as the sun hits the horizon. He wakes up, looking as alert as a sloth. A bad case of bed-head that makes him look younger than he is. Seemingly not the least bothered by the fact that he's used her as a headrest for a good part of the trip.

"Hey…" he murmurs with an indolent smirk. Looking at her as if they'd just made love - not sat next to each other on a horrible five hour car trip. She practically clambers over him, all awkward legs and arms, to get out. Can't put up with the suffocating proximity of him a moment longer. _Asshole._ That skin with its richness like warm golden butter, the smell of clean cotton and that hint of him. Like warm dry hay and a death wish. As she passes him, clumsily struggling to get out as fast as humanly possible, he places an impertinent hand on her ass under the pretense of helping.

"Watch it pal!" she sneers, digging her nails into his thigh as she scrambles to get by him with as little physical contact as she can.

"Just giving the lady a hand hoisting that big rump out… the least I can do seeing as how I screwed up our marriage…"

_Tihihi. He thinks he's so damn funny._

"Jerk."

"Aw don't be like that honey bug!... It ain't very ladylike."

The trivial little show he puts on in front of the others.

* * *

_Oh god_.

The air, salty balmy sea air. She gulps in a mouthful as she stumbles out of the car.

She still can't get over how quickly night arrives here. So fast you risk missing a sunset in a blink of an eye. It reminds her of the island. _The other island. _

It's remote, just like Danan had said. A winding little dirt road up on a cliff, the sea visible beneath, washed in blood orange with the last rays of the sun. An old, Dutch colonial style villa perched on top of it, surrounded by a lawn and lush old trees. An ancient, timeless dignity that no wear or tear can steal away from it.

Danan remains in the car and Dewi climbs up in the front seat next to him, saying something about going down to pick up some water and basic supplies at a nearby village. The others stagger out of the car, lugging their bags and stretching stiff limbs.

She approaches the ledge, wanting to see the sea for some reason. It's wild and restless below her. A little path leading from the villa down to a small stony patch of dark sandy beach. Foamy, aggressive waves crashing into it. And she hardly notices him sneaking up behind her. Suddenly standing so close, chest almost touching her back. That gust of hay and sun.

"Not too shabby as hiding places go. Good thing you've got connections Ms LaFleur..." Honey sweet voice but he doesn't fool her. It's like boiling sugar, sticky, angry and messy, burned black at the bottom.

She doesn't answer, a shrug just brings him in closer. And out of the blue, he slides his arms around her waist, fastening them across her stomach. _A lover's gesture._ Though this is anything but. Nothing gentle about the way he rests his chin on her shoulder, hard, heavy sharpness against her clavicle bone. His arms, covered in fine light hair, not wrapped tightly enough to restrict her breathing – still, they do. And she doesn't know why, but she places her own hands across his. Unintentionally. Her fingertips caressing his knuckles. Not caring anymore. It's all screwed up anyway. They can't immerse themselves much deeper into the lies. And in a short foolish moment, she almost closes her eyes.

_It could be like this. They could be like this._

"Why the hell would you take that name? Indulging in some secret daydream?"

_Impossible_.

They could _never _be like that. It is never as simple as two arms around a waist, there is always an undercurrent of something ugly, something unmanageable. The tone unkind, derisory. It occurs to her that he wants the others to think he's whispering sweet nothings to her. This is the scene he's trying to paint. He can't very well attack her out in the open. And she wonders again what's in it for him. _What is this about?_

"Yeah don't flatter yourself. It was Hurley's idea. I would never have chosen it – never. Not in a million years."

Wants to hurt him right back. But it comes out all wrong. She sounds like a stupid little girl. The pressure of hands, large and authoritative across her belly. Her own renegade fingertips that can't help following the ridges of his knuckles and the taught nerves and muscles under the smooth surface of his skin.

The embrace. It's not a thing he'd do with her. It's just a tease, one of his inconsequential mind games. The kind of contrived subterfuge he likes to pull. He knows damn well what he does to her. The little nudges and touches, the seemingly accidental brush of skin against skin –all a ploy, an She knows all this, still. Something intangible, obscure, unexplainable always draws her in. That elusive, '_it could be like this_' that she catches a glimpse of in her peripheral vision only to loose sight of it the very next second. He plays on that. Utilizes her weakness to get one over her. Over and over again.

She thinks; _he'd hold Juliet like this. _And it wouldn't be a game, not a tactic. It'd be real. As if he could read her thoughts; barely audible, just a soft mumble, a jumble of words:

"The damn name. It was supposed to be hers... I was gonna' to ask her to marry me. Had the ring and all…"

And at first, she isn't quite sure she's heard it correctly. _But yes, _she heard it alright and it scrapes and tears at the scab, the raw spot that she'd thought already healed. _Game over,_ playfulness evaporating.

She expels his arms, away from her, throws them down in a silly dramatic gesture. Drapes her own around her midriff. He doesn't make any attempt at pulling her back in, but he doesn't move away either and she doesn't turn around. Staring stubbornly out over the sea and the increasingly dark sky.

"What are you trying to do? Here? We – you and me. We're over. Done with…"

"We never were _anything_."

_Damn._ She'd forgotten how cruel he could be. And it smarts, somewhere underneath it all, in that tender and sore forgotten corner of her. In that secret clandestine place that she doesn't even want to admit exists anymore.

"So why are you here?" _With me_, she thinks but she doesn't say it. "Why are you not in Miami trying to win Juliet over – why here?"

"_Don't_ you bring Juliet into this! Don't you even dare mentioning her name!" he hisses the words, no it's more a wheezing sound than anything. Illogical angry breath on her neck. He'd been the one to bring Juliet into this. _Not her._ She refuses to turn around. Speaks out to the sea. Out to the great nothing.

"Oh, and why is that ? You too scared to try? Don't have the guts to try to get her back?"

"She has a good life. I wouldn't want to mess that up for her. She deserves better…" he says with some measure of dignity that she herself has already lost.

_This._ This is what causes her to swivel around unsteadily and him to take a step back. Checking quickly that no one is near enough to overhear them.

"And we don't? _I_ don't?" It's pathetic how her words reverberate in his silence.

"No _you _don't! Don't you get it!? Everything you touch turns to shit!?" The rancour of his voice, it stumps her out.

_Extinguishes her. _

She'd always thought that on some level he'd cared for her. Through it all and even when he fell in love with Juliet, she'd always felt that she mattered to him and that beneath all the other crap there was real affection. She looses her cool now. _Gets childish and petty._

"You jumped!"

His lips pulled into a small warped smile, devoid of any kindness. Scornful and a little pleased that she'd sink that low, allowing him to get down to the nitty-gritty of it too. Bringing it down to the lowest common denominator.

"Yeah, and it sure seems it was a lucky thing I did.- Seeing as how _you_ went shacking up with Jackass the second I was a spot bobbing in the sea."

And she sees it now, a profound insecurity that she's somehow responsible for. She'd done this to him. By never really choosing him. _She'd done this._

"It wasn't like that…"

"Yeah, you tell yourself that - you do that girl…" he backtracks, literally, moves backwards away from her. And she finds herself missing the arms around her waist. Even though she knows they are just part of one of his schemes of dirty manoeuvres to throw her askew. She misses them.

* * *

He doesn't really know where the resentment comes from. The words, harsher than he'd wanted, meaner than he'd intended. Suddenly he finds himself there, having pushed so hard, far too hard. The dejection in her eyes, the poignant slump of her shoulders. The wind has her hair whipping against her face. The damn skirt of her dress that flaps like a blue flag on half mast.

_He regrets it._ Regrets all of it. He wants to… Damn, he wishes it were different. That _they_ were different. Her fingertips that had moved like butterflies on his skin. Making him raw with unwanted emotions. He wants to drag her with him, now. _Now._ Find an empty, quiet spot in that old house. Find a darkness that can swallow them both – take away the humming and buzzing in his head. _The skin, the skin. _

Wants to lap up the milkyness of her. Wants to screw her until he doesn't feel anything anymore.

He doesn't know where it comes from._ This. With her. _

He knows lust. _Hell yes_, he recognizes that part because that's what he does, what he's all about. _What he sells_. He manipulates, he builds up tension, creates an explosive environment around himself so that he can get what he wants. And it's all about fanning the lust, feeding the craving, sustaining the fantasy. That is familiar territory.

He considers himself a reasonably smart fellow, but he doesn't get this. Never has, never will. What it is about her that forces itself under his skin, into his nerves, burrows down deep and refuses to let go. He's been with so many women. Many of them more beautiful, more sophisticated more alluring, more _everything_ than her. Her beauty is unquestionable – she is a pretty girl - but when it comes down to it, he has no idea what makes her so damn different. And it drives him insane, that he, a man of average intelligence can't figure it out._ She_ - she is just a fickle, erratic girl. A particularly fucked-up girl.

All of this capricious bullshit with her. _Is this crap some twisted, poor man's version of love?_

His feelings for her muddled, confused and down-right unwelcome. But undisputable nonetheless.

* * *

"Hey, you two, enough with the frigging romance on that ledge – if none of you sops gonna' jump - we need to talk!"

It's Miles, a theatre whisper from the little stone paved porch in front of the house. Lean painted wood pillars holding up an old-fashioned roof clad with small rhomb shaped wooden tiles. The doors leading in to the house are glass paned, painted dark gray. Hurley sits on the low stone wall surrounding the porch. Claire is nowhere to be seen and from the wailing seeping out from the house she's conveniently occupied elsewhere. There is a hushed urgency that tells him she might be back any minute.

Hurley's friendly face is unusually glum under the bare light-bulb hanging from it's cord above him. But it's Miles who speaks. Miles who cares more than Sawyer has ever seen him care about anything.

"So you _meathead_, you thought it would be a cool idea to hook up with Jack again did you?"

They all stare at him and he doesn't get it. _What the fuck is their problem?_ He'd looked out for them, all of them, back at the Dharma Initiative. _Ungrateful bastards._

"What's it to ya' _short stuff_?" He gets his smokes out. Always a life line when in doubt. Taps the package so that one falls out in his hand. He fumbles, dropping it on the ground but thinks, what the heck, and picks it up again. Decides to smoke it anyway._ Just because. _Not even bothering blowing off the dust.

"James…What's he talking about?" Kate, her nose wrinkled in disgust as if he'd been fraternizing with Stalin himself. Arms still secured around herself, as if he might steal her away otherwise.

"Yeah I talked to Jack. That a crime now!?" He raises an eyebrow at her while lighting up his cigarette.

"What about? Dude what did you tell him? - Does he know where we are?" Hurley now, biting his lip and looking more upset than the situation warrants.

"Yeah, because it is really, really hard tracking you yahoos down. You leave a trail gaudier than a Mardi Gras parade and you think _I_ am being indiscreet!? If Doc wanna' find you guy's it wouldn't be all that hard. He could just follow the flags and confetti and trumpets of this freakin' freak show."

Hurley's eyes are dark, a pitch black that throws him a bit.

"Jack called me Sawyer, just now. _Dude _- did you have to give him my number too? He was pissed that I hadn't told him about Kate – that she's here – and that I helped her get away. He doesn't approve of this, any of it. He always wanted Kate to do her time, make amends, face up to it all..."

"Yeah? I reckon Jacko is right for once." he says, intentionally heartless shrug. He couldn't care less if Kate served her time for offing that douche bag or not. In any case, he doesn't really believe that repenting, atoning for your sins and all that crap happens in the lock-up. Besides, his gut tells him that the creep she took out probably had it coming to him anyway.

"So what the heck did you tell him?" Miles backing up Hurley. _What a pair._

"That's private buddy boy. But he was mighty interested in hearing that you are here Kate. I reckon it won't be long before he comes knocking on your door. Wouldn't be surprised if he brings the law and a frigging priest either. He seems mighty big on redemption and salvation of your fucked-up soul. Though god knows why really, clearly you're beyond all that.."

"Why, why would you do that?… Does he know she's here – does he?.. Know about Claire?" Kate's apprehension clearly infused with equal measures of fear and anger. She has one hand up near her face, winding a little strand of hair around her finger, one of those annoying nervous ticks she's got.

"He knows alright and he ain't all that happy about it."

"Shit man…" is all Miles says, sinking down right next to Hurley.

"Come on Freckles, it'll be great old fun having Jackass here. We can sneak around and screw behind his back like in the good old days huh?"

"Dude, you couldn't let it just be could you?" Hurley mumbles, wiping a large hand across his forehead. And the disappointed look on his face tells Sawyer that he's gone too far this time. It's funny that it's Hurley who looks at him with that appalled expression, not her. Not Kate.

_Au contraire._

Suddenly that damn woman smiles at him. An enormous, honest to good, ear to ear smile causing a flurry in his stupid stomach. She's got that snooty look, the one that rivals Juliet's ice queen impersonation. But she's got a hell of a smile going on. _Like she's called his bluff._

"You know what? I don't even believe you really called him. This is just one of your little perverted games. – You're all talk Sawyer. All big loud foul mouth and no action. "

He throws the stub of his cigarette on the ground, grinding it out with the heal of his shoe. Can't help smiling back at her big goofy grin.

"I am huh? Lead the way - I'll show you big foul mouth and no action alright!"

It's Miles who makes the retching sound, forcing the focus back on him.

"Enough already! Un-fucking-believable! We get it! You two have sexual tension – yada-yada-yada… We sort of have bigger issues here, like what we'll do if Jack contacts Claire or even, crap,… shows up here?"

The headlights of a car approaching. Danan and Dewi returning from their little supply run. They just stand there, the four of them, watching Danan park the car, eying each other warily.

Kate's smile vanishing as the fall-out of Miles' words hit her. That there might be truth behind them. And he almost feels bad for her.

_Almost._

* * *

_Please leave a review if you liked it!_


	13. Another question

_Thanks so much for the wonderful reviews!_

_Rated M. for quite a bit of nudity (oh and swearing of course but that goes without saying…) _

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it…_

* * *

**Another question**

* * *

The old wiring of the house is somewhat unreliable so everywhere inside there are lanterns and candle holders for the event of a black-out.

The house looks newly renovated, the wood panelling and walls painted a light glossy bluish white, making the interior seem cool in spite of the lack of air conditioning. Old General Electric ceiling fans are mounted in every room and the furnishing is timeless, like a Dutch family has just up and gone sixty years ago. Perhaps they have. Each room is equipped with built in wardrobes and old-fashioned sinks. High brass beds, the type you'd expect to find in a turn of the century hospital, rickety and worn by time.

The tension in the house is like the ominous sparkle inside old threadbare wiring. It fizzles under the surface and though everyone tries, more or less successfully to keep up appearances, there is a palpable restlessness. It is difficult to exactly pinpoint the source of the uncomfortable atmosphere. A held-back polite squabble breaks out over sleeping arrangements.

Dewi and Hurley are only staying the night and Danan is supposed to drive them back in the morning. Meanwhile Dewi doesn't want to sleep anywhere in the same region of the house as Sawyer. She glares at him with her Siamese cat eyes. Frankly, Kate can't say she wants anything to do with him either. The mere thought of him, ratting her out to Jack; highly unsettling. And his harsh words still burn inside of her; the _'everything you touch turns to shit_'.

It's a small house with only three bedrooms. Miles tries to argue the good sense in him sharing Claire's and Aaron's room, though honestly – no one buys it. Hurley and Sawyer roll their eyes in unison. Claire and Aaron gets a room for themselves, Dewi and Kate share another and Danan and Hurley the last one. Miles and Sawyer, it's agreed – will crash in the living-slash-dining room area. There is only one sofa and Miles steals it without blinking, leaving Sawyer with the sole option of trying to make himself comfortable on a measly blanket on the floor.

* * *

Dewi makes the bed with the linen they have brought. It's a double bed and they will have to share it. Kate doesn't mind but she dreads the inevitable conversation she sees coming from a mile away. And she doesn't have to wait long. Dewi's slim white hands tucking the sheet in underneath the mattress. Her glossy dark hair falling down around her cheeks like a shiny curtain.

"So you and Jim huh?" Dewi says and smiles one of those keep-a-stiff-upper-lip smiles as she unzips her little red Gucci overnight bag. Long curved fingernails matching the colour exactly. Her unforced feminine elegance makes Kate feel like a brute. Some kind of savage creature. They are worlds apart – so strange to think that they'd be drawn to the same man.

"Yeah, it isn't much to talk about… Honestly Dewi, you are better off without him." Kate flips open her own bag. An old dusty canvas bag, funky zipper that gets caught in the ripped lining. Borrowed from Hurley, like everything else she 'owns'.

"Yeah, I figured as much. So he's not really a 'property developer' is he?"

Kate hesitates for a second, but as much as she wants too, she can't think of a convincing enough lie.

"Yep, sure he is… If - by _'property'_ you mean wives of wealthy men." _Ah, what the heck. _It's not like he goes out of his way to help her either. In fact, all he has done since he got here is trying to trip her up.

Dewi nods solemnly, slumping down on her side of the bed.

"I figured as much."

Kate digs in the mess of her own bag. She'd packed in such a hurry. Finally she pulls out her pyjama bottoms and a white sleeveless t-shirt she uses to sleep in. The print 'pure' across the chest in a pale grey classic roman typeface. She searches for something to say. Doesn't know what, other than the truth.

"I'm so sorry Dewi - that's just who he is. If you're just looking for a great time, he isn't _that_ bad. Keep your wallet shut tight and don't fall for him, and I guess you'd be alright."

"Is that what happened you? Did you fall for him? I mean you did marry him so…."

"Maybe… It was all a big mistake. - He isn't very reliable Dewi, so have your fun but don't pin any hopes on him. He is what he is."

Smiling now, finally a relaxed, proper smile. Pulling forth a little aluminium beauty case from her bag.

"Nah, we'll see. Marriage isn't all that it's cracked up to be but I think that maybe I shouldn't rock the boat too much. Maybe I should just be a good girl and wait patiently for my husband to return. Besides, he – well, I…. you know he watched you the whole way in the car. He obviously still has a thing for you…"

"Oh that,… Yeah right! That's nothing. It's just to bug me. It's all an act with him Dewi."

"Just saying. Hot ex, travels around the world just to bug you. Seems like a flimsy excuse to me."

"Yeah, he did. And also he tried to pick up the young beautiful wife of a rich business man, his ex's friend to boot at the same time. Sound like he's into rekindling an old romance to you?"

She laughs as she pulls her nightgown over her head. Some cream coloured silky thing that just skims her tall frame like it was moulded on her.

"I'm just saying… If I were you, I'd play his game, turn the tables. Have your fun and leave it at that."

"It doesn't work like that for us Dewi."

"For _you_, you mean?"

"Yeah…"

* * *

If Kate's hardwood sofa down at the Sanur house was torture to sleep on – this is, well this brings it to a whole new level all together.

_The Olympics of torture._

The watching Miles snuggle up on the couch cushions and him there on the old ceramic floor with a worthless blanket underneath. Maybe he's going soft. He'd slept for months on the beach back on the island, and he'd not had any problems with it. But Miles' light snoring and Dewi's and Kate's hushed voices from their room is driving him bats. Wondering what the heck they are talking about. He might be conceited but he just has an uncomfortable feeling that he's the topic tonight.

He takes the flimsy brown blanket, drapes it over his shoulders and goes out on the porch. He just needs to smoke. _Think._ The crickets are noisy as hell and the air humid and fragrant, ocean and some kind of flowers.

It seems a funny coincidence when a few minutes later, Danan, sneaks the door closed behind him and joins him on the little stone wall. Still wearing his linen trousers and a black t-shirt. As if he's looking for an opportunity to speak to him alone.

"I'm out of smokes I'm afraid. Can I steal one?" That jovial grin. _Smooth._ Shit, who does he think he can kid? Can't con a con. _You want something,_ he thinks. _Something else._

He can't believe now that he'd ever thought them lovers. He'd felt like an idiot when Miles had told him. Well, he is a bit of an idiot. The suaveness, the elegance, the sophistication. Hell, how could he not have known? Anyhow, it hardly matters. It's not like she's his anyway.

"Sure buddy…" He flicks him one, leans forward to light it for him. Danan, lips pinched around the cigarette, dark hair falling across his forehead. He straightens back, inhaling deeply, long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the lean ankles. Sawyer can't believe those eyelashes. Any woman would kill for them. Obscenely long is what they are. He'd pull some good ones with those dense charcoal black lashes, that's for sure.

"Having fun?" he says, peering at the beautiful man next to him.

"What?... Yeah, sure I guess… " Cool as a cucumber, but slightly perplexed by the question. He smiles back at Sawyer, reassuringly they way you would look at a very primitive, uncouth creature, to calm it down. It has the exact opposite effect on him.

"This freak-show entertaining enough for you or you waiting for it to become profitable?" he sneers as he drags on his smoke, squinting towards the handsome bastard beside him.

"What? … What are you talking about?" He throws his head back, holding the cigarette almost vertically, his neck long and graceful._ The dying dandy…_

"Dough? Is that it? You think you might actually get some mullah from them? Hell, I reckon you don't even have to try that hard. Just ask Hurley,…yeah, he's funny like that. Trusts people…"

"So just because _you're_ the dick who's trying to con my sister, I must be a crook too?" His even white teeth, glimmer against the soft sheen of his skin.

"If you say so buddy…" Sawyer grumbles. '_Sister' my ass,_ he thinks.

" I happen to like them, genuinely like them. They are good people."

"Yeah okay. Sure, yup. I'm sure you're just really enjoying Kate's scintillating company. Man is she a laugh and a half!"

"Actually she is pretty amazing. Pity - you're to dumb to see it."

"Yeah, maybe. Or maybe –maybe you reckon she's a pretty amazing way into Hurley's big fat wad of cash?"

"It isn't about the money."

"It's always about the money, or sex, and since we can pretty much eliminate the sex as a motivation then… money it is!"

"Maybe it's neither about Katie nor about the money… Maybe it's just what it is - friendship."

It puzzles him. The relaxed beauty of this guy. And shit, it does feel like he has missed something.

"Ha, yeah, peace brother and 'Kumbaya' and all that…No, nope. Not buying it. So it's not Kate and it's not Claire. Which only leaves Hurley or Miles depending on what your preference is. Big, rich and curly or unwashed, snarky and surly… What's your flavour?"

"Man you are just a bigheaded jerk. No wonder she doesn't want you anywhere near her." He looks up at him under that sleek dark hair. Eyes radiating of a shrewd, astute intelligence. A cruel kind of beauty. "You know she doesn't want you here right? You're not welcome."

"I ain't leaving Fido. I'll stay and keep my eyes on you, pretty boy." He smiles back at the man, winking at him, pulling out all the stops with dimples and all.

"Yeah, don't go get any ideas. Over-the-hill country bumpkins aren't really my thing."

_Hardiharhar._

"Oh, you'd be surprised how many have said that before and…"

With an exaggerated camp flip of his hand, Danan flings his cigarette behind him and turns to Sawyer. The liquid bronze eyes that don't betray any real emotions, cut him short.

"She - _**doesn't**_ - want - you."

And Sawyer doesn't know what to answer. Wants to throw something sarcastic back but nothing comes out. Maybe because there is nothing new about Danan's words.

They are the very same he hears echoing inside his own head, over and over again. Day in and day out. Since the very first time he met her._ She doesn't want you._

Wants someone else. Someone better. More worthy. _And if she is with you it's just an urge, just physical. _Something she'll deny in the morning. A sexual hangover.

"You step out of line and I'll kill you. I swear I will, and it won't be something I loose sleep over. It won't be the first time either buddy-boy!"

" I know _James _– I know you… I know exactly what kind of man you are, tough guy."

And something about the way he pronounces _'James'_ is downright creepy. The sensual curve of his mouth, half smirk, half smile.

"Oh, _do_ you now! Well as it happens, I know a wee bit about what kind of man you are too – so I guess we're even buddy!"

"Talking about loosing sleep – how _do_ you sleep nowadays James?"

He can't help it. It's the way he looks at him. Those words. _What the fuck could he know?_ Up until a few weeks ago they hadn't even met. The man with the golden bedroom eyes – seriously creeping him out.

* * *

She wakes up early –and a bit disoriented at first, her sheets in a mess, humid from perspiration. Strange, considering she hardly ever moves in her sleep. She can pretty much count on waking up in the exact position she fell asleep in.

The air is crisp and smells of salt, reminding her of where she is. She looks over at Dewi next to her, her back turned, shiny dark hair spread over the pillow and her breathing regular – still asleep. But Kate can't sleep any longer.

_Impossible, _

Unspent energy rushing through her veins, driving her up, out, down the little path to the rocky beach, still in her striped pyjama pants and white top, green rubber flip-flops on her feet. And the sky is blue, a pale icy blue that makes her pull in her breath sharply – drink it in. She stands there, looking out over the beach, small waves rolling in. Her legs far apart and she stretches her arms and hands upwards, backwards behind her head.

And that's when she spots his head.

_A spot bobbing in the sea._

Just like he'd said.

"Morning Pumpkin!" he shouts, one arm raised from the water, waiving at her. He dives under the surface and comes up, closer now. His hair slick against his skull.

"You ought to be more careful. Danan warned us, the current can be dangerous here!" She shouts back. He comes nearer still, making shouting redundant.

"It ain't dangerous, your pal just don' want ya' skinny dipping with your dangerous ex is all. You coming in scaredy cat?"

The challenge in his voice. Making it irresistible. She kicks off her sandals, loosens the drawstring of her pyjamas and steps out of them in a pile. Little black boy-shorts underneath that she thanks her lucky star for. Wouldn't have felt safe swimming here in skimpy underwear. And it isn't the current she worries about.

She plunges in and he crawls closer to her, meeting her half way. They stop there, a few feet apart. Looking hesitantly at each other. Both unsure of what direction to take now._ Are they mad at each other, are they flirting or teasing today, or are they even speaking?_

_What's on today's menu?_

She shoots off through the water, putting some more distance between them. Ducking under the surface only to break up a little bit away.

"So did you?" She says, expelling water from her mouth. It's cold in the water. Still too early to swim. The chill of it against her skins makes her break out in goose bumps. Or perhaps it's him. The smooth mass of his shoulders visible just above the surface.

"Did I what now darling…!" She can tell he's struggling to keep up. She's the stronger swimmer of the two, but he is more stubborn and he fights to cut the distance.

"Did you really call Jack?" She decides to swim leisurely closer to the beach. Her feet almost touching the bottom. Seaweed and little pebbles against her soles.

"Sure did." He says it as if it didn't matter.

"And did you really tell him where I am?"

"He still cares for you Freckles..." She hates the way he sneaks that damn _'Freckles'_ in, just to pacify her, not really answering her question at all. "I figure you two can still make it."

Her heart sinks like a rock to the bottom at his words. He isn't teasing now. Isn't playing. And she doesn't want to hear _that,_ doesn't know why it hurts so damn much when there is nothing unkind about it. No harm meant. But it feels as if he's just giving her away. And she's not his to give away as he pleases.

"I don't want him." She trudges on, towards the beach, the water down to chest level now.

His voice is strident and unemotional.

"Who _do_ you want Kate?"

The water gives way in little waves against her thighs as she propels herself forward. Has to get away from this discussion. It's not their normal bickering. It's serious. And she doesn't want anything to do with it.

"I want Aaron." She throws it back over her shoulder, taking the last steps up on dry land. Leaps up to where her clothes lie in a pile. Pulls the thin cotton pyjamas up over her wet underwear. Turns in his direction as she ties the string again. Her hair dripping in tendrils around her shoulders.

She is surprised to seem him nearer now. Chest deep with a frumpy frown on his face.

"That's a cop out and you know it. –_ Who_ do you want Kate?"

And though she imagines hearing those letters touch her lips. The _'you'_ whispered soundlessly – in reality, she says nothing. She bends down quickly, gathers up his clothes too, noticing with a certain satisfaction that his boxers are part of the pile too.

"Watcha' think you're doing?"

"What does it look like? – Taking your clothes." she chirps as she skips and jumps a few of the larger rocks with his stuff clutched to her chest. Her pyjama-legs dragging in the sand, dirty around the edges.

She hears him laughing behind her and she has to turn to see for herself - whether he's even the slightest surprised.

"You just go ahead and do that sweetheart! Hell, I ain't _ever _been shy."

"Okay, let's see about that…"

"Yeah, let's do that…" The two rows of his teeth bared in that peculiar half baked smile that makes her heart skip a beat or two.

And she has to hurry because he is cleaving the water like a sleek cruise liner –_ and here he comes_. That natural unabashed nudeness. Proud little smirk and that cocky strut to his gait, He shakes his wet hair out of his eyes, stalking towards the beach. Like some wicked Adonis on the hunt.

"Told you, I ain't the one who's shy …"

Just not to let him win this, she stops in her tracks and gives him that uninterested once-over. The one that travels lazily from the tips of his toes to the crown of that drenched dirty blond hair of his.

And she can't say she regrets this. The allowing herself to let her glance slide up his long limbs. But she hates the way her cheeks feel hot and how her eyes want to look away, coyly. He smiles as her cowardly gaze finally reaches his face. That proud dumb smile. Doesn't make the least effort to shield himself, instead he just straightens out his back and throws his shoulders backwards. Knowing damn well that he's beautiful._ Beautiful. _The shimmer of skin and the sheer quantity of it all, everywhere, honey coloured from top to bottom. It brings her back to the island. Another time, almost like this.

"I used to be so naïve," she says dryly nodding vaguely in the direction of his crotch. You know I used to believe that _**that **_was because of the cold water."

"Still the heartless one... I suppose Dewi might wanna' warm me up…" She can hear him chuckle to himself behind her. Damn, like water on a duck, literally. Nothing sticks to him. _Nothing._

She makes her way up the steep path quickly, the soft crunch of his naked feet on the ground behind her. And on the porch, Dewi and Claire are already out, sipping coffee and leaning against the short stone partition.

And he just comes prancing by, big bad wolf grin on his face, proud and bare-assed like the day he was born. - Claire chokes, spluttering out a mouthful of hot coffee at his decorous little salute.

"Well howdy to ya' ladies."

Dewi just raises her delicate eyebrows in Kate's direction and nods as the three of them watch his perfect backside disappearing in through the glass doors. Him; whistling a jaunty tune.

"He isn't exactly modest..." Claire coughs, fanning her mouth with one hand and balancing her half empty cup with the other.

"Nope, couldn't accuse him of that." Kate angrily rolls his clothes into a lump and chucks them on the ground by her feet. Wants to stomp on them too, but she has some measure of restraint left.

"But hey,.. starting to understand the whole '_it was just physical but we were married'_ thing a little better …" Claire giggles now. A girlish, high school girl giggle, that makes Kate smile with her.

"Yeah… You know what we discussed last night…. I take it all back! To hell with being a good wife!" Dewi says and screws her whole face up in a sly smile. She winks at Kate in a way that she hopes indicates she's being ironic.

Miles kicks open the door, comes out balancing a tray with a couple of steaming pot noodles. Forks in a pile next to them.

"Man,… you chicks sure are hyper-chipper this early in the morning…." He says, glancing at them suspiciously.

"Yeah, it's just that the view here is absolutely gorgeous." Claire gazes dreamy-eyed at the closed glass door as if _he_ might reappear.

"Mmmhum. Yeah, I was just met by a ghastly sight myself. I'd forgotten how Jimbo favours nudity…" Miles sighs, looks at them as if they were a particularly rowdy class of pre school kids and takes a pew next to Dewi on the porch wall.

"So Kate, how come one of your exes is a roaming psycho trying to hunt you down and the other a raving exhibitionist?" Claire puts a slim arm around her shoulders, squeezing it in jest. Dewi glances at them both, seemingly confused. She sips her coffee and buffs her elbow into Kate's other side.

"What do you mean?.. Danan said your ex is trying to find _you _Claire? – Or what, both of you sisters have some maniac after you?"

Kate can feel Claire's arm stiffening, she retracts it slowly. She senses the seed of doubt, the first sheer green sprouts of suspicion in the young girl's mind.

"Danan? What's she talking about Katie? No, you must have misunderstood,.. it's Kate's ex husband that , the doctor."

"Oh, sorry. My mistake Claire – I was just so sure Danan was talking about you. I just figured it was the father of the baby that you're hiding from…" Dewi says, apologetically.

"Thomas? No, he wouldn't follow me in a million years… Probably just relieved to be rid of me, us… Kate..?"

Claire takes her coffee cup, pauses in front of Kate, lips moving as if she wants to say something. But she just looks at her and turns to go back into the house.

Kate's heart has frozen. _Shit. Shit_. What an amateur thing to do. The lies, the different ones. She feels the ground cracking around her. It won't keep together much longer. Claire has had her first reason to doubt her. Her very first sense of misgiving, and it will fester and grow, she just knows it.

Miles looks completely unaffected – as if he hasn't heard a thing. Completely occupied by something else she realizes. He sniggers like a school boy, pointing a cheeky index finger at her hips.

"Hey Kate, how come your pants are wet around the ass?" And his grin grows wider yet as his eyes travel upwards. "And I can totally see right through your shirt!"

"Watch it pal or I'll tell Claire you're eyeing me up!"

"Wha… no , hmm let's rephrase that…. Say Kate - you're looking very lovely this morning."

"Better – would be better yet if you'd stop ogling!" She says as she pulls her arms across her chest and presses the door open with an elbow.

* * *

_Review if you liked it – and even if you didn't, it's always nice to hear what you think._


	14. Another kind of dance

_Thanks so much for the reviews! This chapter is a little shorter than usually but I thought it was better left alone…_

_Rated M. for a bit of sexual content in this chapter (and still some swearing…and foul language) _

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it…_

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**Another kind of dance**

* * *

Damn him.

It's not a decision that she takes. It takes her. She hears him in there. And she doesn't know what it is, but suddenly she's got the devil inside. Doesn't have a plan, just needs to... Wants to beat the stuffing out of him. Her knuckles itching, _no_; aching with the urge to strike at his jaw. Pummel him down and leave him hurting for making her feel like this.

And it isn't because of those long limbs, the perfect proportions of shoulders to hips that he has done nothing to deserve. It isn't even that skin with its golden sheen or that shit-eating grin that she just needs to wipe off his face. It's the question, that wants, commands, insists on an answer. _Now. Now. Immediately._ Before she has time to stop and think.

'_Who do you want?' _

She places her hand on the door handle, not a fragment of hesitation before pressing it down.

* * *

He changes in the bathroom. Hell, it isn't like he has a chance at any privacy anywhere else. His jeans are still with her, out there and he'll be damned if he's going to go get them himself.

He dries himself off with a ridiculously small towel, more a hand towel than anything. Pulls on a pair of dark blue boxers and a grey shirt and just as he's pulled it down over his stomach, the door pops open, and she's there.

She's there. And it doesn't take more than that for the surge of desire to well up within.

That intense insanity of her eyes, booting the door shut behind her with the heel of her bare foot. Still in that t-shirt, _PURE_, it says, font distorted, curving against the contours of her breasts. Soaking wet and almost see-through, clinging to her chest in a way that… _'Pure' my ass_, he thinks and d_amn,_ he can hardly look at her. The rush of blood through his brain.

There is a buzz of something in the air around them, ringing in his ears - everywhere. She lashes out, suddenly, randomly and_ hell_.

He doesn't see it coming.

_Though he should have remembered that look._ The rosy blush on her face and the wide luminous eyes betraying a voracity that he hasn't anticipated. Doesn't quite know what to do with. That he has somehow brought about.

"What the hell do you think you doing?" he grouses. And he's nervous. As old as he is, big experienced guy like him, he is all aflutter, all skittish nerves.

Her impelling herself upon him, making him crash against the tiled wall. His head bouncing against the hard surface. And the unexpected sweetness of her lips. _On his._ A faint taste of coffee and spices. Cayenne and cinnamon. The insistence of her mouth, perilously sensuous and greedy at the same time.

"Well butter my biscuit… What took you so long?" he exhales heavily against her, trying to sound like he isn't totally spooked by this. Because, hell, she _ain't _kidding.

He would have thought twice about it, the playing with her, had he known. One thing to tease her, wind her up – another altogether to 'walk the talk'. To be that man in the face of this. Having faked this bravado so perfectly she expects it to be real.

Teeth knocking into teeth. Before he knows it her fingers skimming under his shirt dragging it upwards. Edging his boxers down over his hipbones, almost giving him a heart attack - forcing him to grab her hands. He bends down. Kisses her there, on the pale tender inside of her wrist, tries to quiet the urgency. Tries to catch up.

_How did she go from that to this?_ _When?_

And he's not sure. Not sure he can.

She rips her arm away from his grip, fingers pushing through the hair on his neck, rousing a sleeping fever that makes him brittle. And he wants to give in. He wants to but he's all cleaned out. _Skint._ He doesn't know if he can. What she gives is never enough.

"Girl,..." he whispers. "You scare the hell out of me…." His self control in shreds. He's hardly aware that he's said it out loud until he notices the words. Unable to take them back.

_Bright, ruby red and honest hanging in the air above them._

"_Sissy_." Her smile against his lips.

The wet fabric around her ribs under his hands, sticking to her skin as he pulls and tugs at it. Hot underneath, impatient and rushed. The rounded cushiony feeling of her breast in his hands, impossibly silken skin. It's been so long. _So long._

And his pulse pounds, ear-splittingly loud, its relentless; _it's you. You,.. you, you, you youyouyou ... _Accelerating. The rip tide of her, and he knuckles under. Yields to the silent murmur of her heart – promising everything – giving nothing.

"_You…_" Her soft susurration against his mouth as if she can hear it too. A strange time-warped answer to his question on the beach. Her clammy shirt in a bunched up ball on the bathroom floor. The smell of the ocean on her. And he doesn't care that he's on the brink of ruin, that she will bleed him dry. The;_ you, you, you, _hammering down all rationality.

_Fast, fast, fast,_ before reason catches up, grabs him by his ankles and hauls him up from this lunacy. Her and him. Could never be. He's all tapped out. One foot out the window, and she never had hers inside in the first place.

But she's there, round soft breasts nudging against his chest, skin like champagne, fizzy and inebriating. Small warm hands on his back, in his hair, on his face. The humming of her skin against his. An energy that vibrates, overflows. Makes him yank at the drawstrings of her pyjama pants. Only managing to pull it into a hard double knot. Impossible to untie with his shaking, impatient fingers. _It doesn't matter._

_Fast, fast, fast._ Before sanity gains on him, leaping up behind, long panicky strides. He prises a hand down the back of her waistband. The soggy fabric of those little shorts she's wearing against his fingers instead of warm skin. The round of her buttocks. Her hair, long on her back, dripping tendrils skimming his arm.

It isn't perfect. None of it is. But her lips are warm and open, her tongue insistent and needy and he gets caught in the undertow. It drags him under and her breath on his face inundates him completely. _He has to get up._ Has to shatter the surface of the torrent around him.

_And that's perhaps as close as they'll ever get. _

"No_. Hell_ no girl. It ain't done… " But his fingertips draw a line between her breasts, circles the warmth of the half moons below. Skin so tender he can only succumb to it. And it doesn't matter. All that matters is this. The little cappuccino coloured freckles sprinkled over her skin. The raspberry red opulence of lips. _Her._

"No …" The taste of her skin, there at the base of her neck. the taste of salty ocean and sweet sun-ripe mangoes.

And it's always either dick or heart with him. Dick for a dollar with countless of women. But that's just business, and he doesn't want to think of what that makes him. With Juliet mostly just heart – that needy, 'need-someone' thing. It's always been dick _or_ heart, never both. Never ever both at once. Not like this, with her. Dick and heart in the most painful constellation imaginable. His hardness against her soft underbelly. His heart thumping violently against hers.

_Not perfect. Far from it._

But it's her, it's her and it's her. And he suddenly knows why he came. Why he came looking for her. _It's her. _Not perfect. Not even in the same zip code. _But she's his._

And he puts two thumbs inside the waist of those stupid drawstrings, determined to tear them if nothing else gives. The dick and the heart, in conformity – it only ever happens in fairy tales. Only once in a blue moon. He imagines her around him, like the sea at noon, sunshine warmth, lapping softness. A natural pace of her own.

A hard rapping on the door, brings them back. Pushes away the floodwater, and they resurface, awkward and unsure. Ashamed of their impulses. The lack of control. He realizes that his underwear has been pushed down, precariously low on his hips. And he flicks them up, quick as a flash, covering up. He feels ridiculous, like a big naked fool now. And frankly it's mostly his heart he wishes he could tuck away.

"Hey, we're leaving now!" Hurley's voice. _Shit. Not now._

And then he thinks. _Yes. Now. It's as well._ - They needed stopping. _Can't do this. _He knows what's coming next and he couldn't live with it. _Can't do without it._

"Sure! Have safe trip back…" he hollers back, his voice breaking like a winded teenage boy's. Hoping that it doesn't give him away. He swallows hard, to stop the breathless gasping that echoes in his own ears. As if he'd been without air for minutes. Hoping it doesn't sound as obvious to Hurley, and her, as it does to him.

His naked back, cold against the tiles. And he releases his hold on her against him, only just realizing how hard his grip has been. Her scalding lips reluctantly abandoning his. That rush of cold air, against his stomach that she leaves. He remembers that so well. That gap that he can never bridge.

"Danan will be back this evening," Hurley shouts through the door. "You all be good okay.."

"Yep. Scouts honour!" he snaps, wishing Hurley would get lost already.

"Later then dudes. - Kate, take care alright!" Hurley's voice again, like a warning this time. _They're not fooling anyone_. They all must have heard them trashing around in the bathroom. Pathetic, like two horny teenyboppers, acting purely on hormones.

She looks like she's about to say something but she doesn't, just leans down to snatch up her t-shirt from the floor, dirty now. She tussles to put it on again, dark wavy hair a tangled mess. Sad, grappling with that scrap of wet fabric. The heartbreaking curve of her cheeks. Her mouth that trembles, just a little and those catlike eyes downcast –ashamed. Looking like she's about to start crying.

_He couldn't take it if she did._

He reaches out, takes hold of her fumbling arms and helps disentangling her from her shirt. Picks up his own by his feet. It's damp but not wet and he holds it out to her. She eyes him suspiciously, as if this might be a trick – a set up – before she seizes it. She lifts it over her head, slipping her arms through the wide sleeves. A last glance of soft naked belly before she pulls it down with a scowl. The strange sense of possessiveness in seeing her in his clothes. Looking small and a little lost in the large grey shirt, reaching her to the top of her thighs.

"Hey, hell, what was _that _about?…" he mumbles.

She pushes her damp curls away from her face. Pretending annoyance. Blows up her cheeks in that way she's got to steel herself. He wants to pull her back. Not perfect. Nothing perfect about her but he wants her. Wants her inconceivably downy skin, against him.

"I'm sorry," she stutters. "I don't … We shouldn't…"

Can't show her this. What a frail fool he is. That the sight of her in that shirt makes him dizzy. Like some damn high-school jock, giving away his team shirt. And it's too much and too hard and he reverts to what's safe. Has to cover it up. Tuck it away.

"Well I don't mind at all Sugarplum… Don't mind at all if ya' get a bit frisky after a little morning swim…"

And his words have the same effect as a hypnotist clicking his fingers. Like that, she comes out of her trance and he momentarily wants to backtrack. Wants to bash his own head in for the stupidity of it. But the air has already gone out of the soufflé and he might as well run with it, run it to the ground.. Pulverize the remains.

So that she will never know.

Her blindingly black stare at him. Unexpected indignation sweeping over her face. Cheeks aflame and he can see her little heartbeat ticking away in the hollow below her throat. Wants to taste her there. Wants it so acutely, he has to erase every chance of it ever happening.

"Or maybe it was the sight of a stark nekkid Southern gentleman that brought it on....?"

"Ass!"

"Hah,… yeah, we can play that game but I saw you looking Sweets. Now, ain't nothing wrong with a healthy appetite. It was the ass that did you in – wasn't it?"

"You ever get tired of always being such a jerk?"

"Nope. can't say I do… Just saying, no shame in a woman wanting to scratch an itch when the mood strikes… " He smiles at her, to cover up how stripped he feels, how bare and exposed his heart feels. Trying to get back to the mocking and teasing, that dance that he can do. Those steps that he's got down to a T. Not this, this dance, where he never were the one to lead, always her. Always at her premises, her initiative – her using him. He just followed like the big dimwit he is.

"And, well you know I'd be tickled pink to oblige, the next time you feel the urge coming on. Just saying, is all…"

"And I suppose you're just the man to do it? What happened to; _everything I touch turns to shit_?" She nods at his dumb dick, still hard, just under the edge of his boxers, slower in cottoning on than the rest of his body. Doesn't get that it's over. That he's fumbled the chance away.

"Yeah, proof is in the pudding, Puddin'!" He hints at himself with open hands, upturned palms. Pretending that it's all a big joke. Him and his crimson red heart that never learns, making his ribs hurt with its disgraceful pounding.

He nearly manages to entice a little forced smile out of her, but it is gone before it started.

"Well, I wouldn't call it '_shit'_ exactly but…" she mutters, that sulking sultry pout she's got. And he wants to wind it back. Start afresh somewhere along the line before he put his foot in his mouth.

"Aw come on Kate. We could… let's just go back into that delicious bed of yours. Dewi will be gone and we can… Hell – you know I'll scratch that little itch of yours like nobody's business…" He says it mockingly, but _hell yes!- _he means it. Eyes on her, wishing she could see through all his bullshit – hoping desperately that she won't.

She hesitates like she's seriously considering it and - _God_. - He can already smell her on him. Imagine her warmth wrapped all around him. To drown in her. To forget all this goddamn crap.

"No. No. I can't do this…. I don't… I don't – want - _you_." she whispers. Words like acid poured down his throat.

_It's a lie. - It can't be anything else. _

But she will never admit that _she'd _been the one to intrude upon him. She'd been the one forcing her way into _his _bathroom, her mouth to push against his, _her_ hands on _his_ skin. And the thing that gets to him, that makes him crumble around her. - He doesn't think she really wants _him_. Not _him_. He's like that skanky girl you're hopelessly attracted to, who you like to screw - and how! The one that you are embarrassed to admit just does it for you. - The one you'd never, ever dream of bringing home to meet your mama.

_You'd bring Jack home, that's who._ Not him.

Just as well. _She'll be the end of him. _He pulls himself together. Straightens his boxers and leans forward to open the damn door for her.

"Could have fooled me Freckles. Could have fooled me." He makes a curt bow accompanied by a little sarcastic flourish and follows quietly behind her, watching the gentle slope of her waist where the shirt_, his_ shirt dips in.

The feeling of having just escaped complete disintegration.

_Doesn't want you. _

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_Please leave a review if you liked it._


	15. Another if

_Thanks so much for the wonderful, engaging reviews! They mean the world to me._

_I'm not really satisfied with the way this chapter turned out. But I'll just go with it and see where it lands.…_

_Rated M. for the usual swearing and some mature content(just minor, mild stuff )…_

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it…_

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**Another if**

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She marches out, through the living room, in long precise strides. Arms swinging like a soldier's, the long wet hair swaying on her back with the movement, leaving dark stains on the gray of the t-shirt. He wants to rush after her, make her take it back. The; _I don't want you._ Instead he strolls calmly along after her, out in front of the house. where the car is parked. Completely inadequately dressed, only in his boxers, barefoot and still reeling from the kiss.

That urgency of hers, always with the violent, somewhat desperate undertones. It had taken him by surprise even now. Though she was always like that, back on the island. All rough and tumble. Her type of sexuality, a mixture of inherent sensuality, anxious anger and shame. Yanking her in different directions.

Danan is under the hood, checking the engine or something that Sawyer doesn't get. He stands up and stops to look them over as they come out. _And they must be a sight._ Kate with her arms wrapped around herself, wearing his shirt like it were a straight-jacket. Her chin scrubbed pink from his stubble, and red blotches of colour on her cheeks clearly visible in the stark sunlight. He is no more presentable, completely in the buff, spare his damn underwear. Presumably looking as ruffled as she does.

"You okay Kate?" Danan asks and it pisses him off how they keep saying that whenever he's around her. As if he's some kind of accident waiting to happen.

"Yeah, sure." She looks like she isn't quite certain of it.

Miles and Claire are standing close to each other on the porch, Claire with that little tyke in her arms. He's fussing and whining this morning, looking like he's struggling to worm his way out from his mother's grip – an angry red colour on his face that instantly reminds him of Kate. Miles turns towards Sawyer, lifting his eyebrows at his state of undress and leers wickedly.

"Haven't found your clothes yet boss?"

Sawyer just grunts something noncommittal. He just can't be bothered with Miles' usual repartee right now. Still pretty damn busy trying to calm his racing pulse.

"You are aware that Kate's wearing your shirt right?" he goes on gleefully. That loutish grin on his face. Arms crossed over his chest, like he knows _everything_.

"Mighty insightful of you, Siddharta..." he gnarls back. "Now back off buddy-boy."

They watch quietly as Danan helps Dewi and Hurley put their things back in the trunk.

Kate stands a bit ahead of him. And just the shape of her, the small of her back, how tightly knotted she is. Everything about her an impenetrable wall. It makes him want to flee.

The wind teases her hair, making it flap around her head, still with that sadness around her mouth. Like her bottom lip could start wobbling any second. In _his _gray shirt and those silly striped pyjama pants with their deadbolt knot. Her ass small and perfectly rounded just beneath the edge of the large t-shirt. She's hiking it up in the front, bunching the fabric up between her fingers. That nervous, pretended cool she's got that just makes him want to rustle her up, put some oomph in her.

The longing for her, absurd. Gut crushing and ludicrous.

If only Hurley hadn't knocked quite yet. If only _he'd_ managed to untie that damn knot in time. If she'd not been so skittish, so easily startled and if he'd been more of the man she wants. If it weren't for all these _if's_, she might not have been standing there ahead of him now looking so incredibly sad. They'd be somewhere else altogether.

_If only. _

The impulse takes hold of him. _He has to get out of here._

"Hey Hurley, wait up!" he says taking a step forward. Thinking that he'll just get back in, grab his clothes and his duffel bag and get the hell out of there. Away from her and all of this fucked-up nonsense. Away from his feelings for her – he'll just leave them behind.

But she reaches out, so fast, he isn't even sure she did it on purpose, just brushing her palm against his arm. '_Stay',_ it says, the little stealthy gesture. '_Not sure I want you but - stay_.'

"What dude?" Hurley stoves his bag inside and turns towards him. Sawyer steals s a fleeting look at her and to his surprise she looks back. The sleeves of his t-shirt reaching her down to her elbows. _'Stay'. _Her eyes immediately drop to her feet as if she's just given away a great disgraceful secret. That anxiouslittle twitch at the corner of her mouth. The mouth that has just kissed him. Kissed him like she meant it.

_And all he wants to do is to untie her. _

If for nothing else, he stays for that. For the remote chance of ever being able to work the knot enough to make it come undone. For a glimpse of what's underneath. For the slim possibility that there might be something, a little spot for him there.

"Aw, nothing, just wondering how the hell we'll get around here. Ain't got another car hidden away do ya'?" He just makes it up as he goes. The little stroke of her hand against him, changes _everything_. He'll work that tangled knot until his fingers bleed. He needs a proper answer from her.

_Who do you want?_

"There's an old motorbike there in the shed behind the house if you need to go and get something down in the village," Danan answers as he slams the back of the car's trunk shut unnecessarily hard. "There is a resort to the west of here, but otherwise it's pretty much just you guys. I've got a couple of ancient surfboards in that shed too if you want to borrow. The surf should be good here… "

"Yeah fat chance of that," Sawyer says, just picturing himself like a large ungainly ox trying to manoeuvre a surfing board.

"I'm game if you are, Chicarilla!" Miles says with a '_the dare is on'_ raise of those weird eyebrows towards Kate. She grins back at him. God, what a pair! They are supposedly hiding out from the big bad wolf and they are acting like they're at their private little Club Med. All jolly, cheerful Coca-Cola campaign-ish..

"Count me in!" she quips and looks so girlishly untroubled that it makes his chest tighten. A fleeting wish of seeing her like that with him.

"Waddaya' say Jimbo, you man enough to brave the waves?" Miles says, turning his attention on him.

"Yeah, seeing as how my other plans of spending the day just fell through…" He says with a pointed look at Kate that she blatantly ignores. "Ain't much else to do around here,… so alright Susie Q - I'm game."

Hurley bundles over and gives both Kate and Claire a hulking big old hug and Sawyer a brotherly pat on the shoulder.

"Be good," he mumbles redundantly. His eyes uneasy as they meet Sawyer's – and there is no question about what he is referring to. Danan does some pretentious cheek kissing thing with everyone except Sawyer and Dewi just waves to them all as if she were royalty.

"If someone watches Aaron for a while, I wouldn't mind having a go either," Claire says with a hopeful look at Kate who seems preposterously happy over the request. He doesn't get her. Back when he knew her, he'd never in a million years figured her a baby-cooing kind of person. But here she is. Willing to risk everything, fabricating a whole new life just to be with that little lard-ball.

"Aw come on Claire, don't tell me all Aussies aren't born on a board, rip curl and all that stuff...?" Miles says making a bad imitation of a standing on a board. Arms straight out from his body, pretending to keep the balance. She smiles and pokes her tongue at him, and Sawyer can swear he just saw a faint blush on Miles' face.

"Great… Katie, if there is anything you can always reach me on my cell." Danan throws a large wooden key chain with a bunch of keys to Miles. "For the house and the bike... In any case, I'll be back tonight or tomorrow morning,"

She nods at this and gives him one of those open, genuine smiles that makes you feel that you are witnessing some rare natural phenomena.

"No need to hurry back." Sawyer smirks at him in a faux polite way that has both Kate and Claire throwing him dirty looks. Danan pretends he hasn't heard and jumps up in the driver's seat. All lean, smooth elegance. He's relieved to see him leave. Especially after their weird conversation last night. He wonders if Henry has managed to dig anything else up on him. At any rate, he's glad to be rid of him for a while.

They watch in silence as the car disappears amongst the lush greens down the little dirt road.

"Hey, no one asked you to come in the first place!" Kate spits his way as she turns to walk tetchily back towards the house. He hurries behind her, not caring if Miles and Claire hear everything.

"Maybe not, but aren't you glad I tagged along now?! Hell…That was some serious heat you turned on in there, this morning, Freckles."

"Seems like we've missed something…" Miles says, sidling up next to Claire and the baby. Interest peaking at the turn of the conversation.

"…I ain't complaining mind you... Not at all…" Sawyer continues, ignoring Miles' expectant expression, eyes fixed on the moving target as she darts away, impossibly fast.

_She's good at the running away part – he'll give her that._

"Get lost Sawyer." She tries slamming the glass door in his face but he catches it, pushing himself in behind her, pursues her through the living room. They've done this so many times, they've got this part down to an artform by now.

"Hey, you two, don't hog the bathroom again – got my beauty ritual to take care of…" Miles trills behind him. Sawyer, kicks the door shut behind him, clumsily emulating Kate's favourite move before he puts a tail on her. So close behind he's practically breathing down her neck.

"Seems like someone's been putting a lid on it for quite a while… How long's it been Sweets?"

He's on her heels, follows her into her room. Her slim hips swinging with each annoyed step. He reaches out to grab hold of the loose fabric of her shirt but she wrings his hand away.

"Mind your own damn business."

"And that's exactly what I'm doing… So, how long? Couple of months? Half a year? A year?!" He sits down on the bed. The old crummy thing gives out a wailing shriek under his weight. He rests his hands on his thighs watching her. She puts her fingers up to her brow. That little shaky hesitant thing she does, like she's trying hard to gather her thoughts.

"Oh just stop it." She suddenly sounds tired, disinterested. As if he bores the hell out of her. _And maybe he does. _She bows down to rummage around in her ugly old bag, a mop of hair falling in her face. Pulls out a bra, some underwear and a cotton dress, the indigo blue one. The one she'd worn that first night.

The joke's on him because he finds it increasingly hard to keep up with the banter. Wants her to admit it. Wants her confirmation that he isn't insane, for believing in spite of all the evidence pointing to the contrary - that she _does _want him.

All he can do is push on, try to goad her into a reaction – catch her off guard so that she will finally own up to it. Wants to strip her, tumble down on the bed and spread her out. Wants to savour her, _now_. Here. The lust pushing it's way forward, making it hard to think around her.

"I reckon your last time was with the Doc and you're just not willing to let that go. Still holding out hope for the hero?" He gets downright mean. Her rejection bringing out that ugly nasty, childish side of him. _Always. _

And really, he wants to wipe every smudge of the memory of Jack away. Doesn't understand why _he_ is the one to repeatedly bring him up. Why he thrusts the topic in her face, when the sheer thought of Jack still has the ability to make him insecure as hell. He'll be the first to admit it, he's always felt at disadvantage around the Doc. Even the thing with Juliet, had started out with the cheap, petty satisfaction of being able to take Jack's woman. To sleep with a woman that Jack had wanted.

"You're wrong. That's not it!"

She turns her back on him, not caring if he's there. She swings his shirt off and just drops it on the floor. He finds it hurtful for some stupid reason. Heck_, it's only a goddamn shirt._ That slim white back of hers gleaming in the stark light from the window. Her spine, straight as a rod. Strong. He barely catches a sideways glimpse of the outline of her left breast as she edges on her bra, pulling up the black thin straps over her shoulders, grappling to hook it in the back. She looks back at him, neck turned in an impossible angle as she raises her arms to draw on the dress over the pyjama pants and all.

"Do – _**you -**_ mind?" Indignant with just an edge of threat.

"Not at all darling. Just carry on!.. " he has to smile at her. Just a while ago, she'd pushed her breasts against his chest and kissed him like there was no tomorrow, and now – the misplaced modesty.

"So whadda'ya think, he'll hop on the first plane over now since he knows where you are? Or put the cops on your heels?"

"Don't… Jack and me are over, _were_ over, even before we went back to the island. You know that." She says, her voice muffled and sad from within the dress.

"So I'm right. That_** is**_ the last man you were with? And you don't wanna' sullen the fond memory of that last fuck?! That it sweetheart? That's why you're pretending you don't want me?..."

Pushes on a bit. Because he is hurting and he wants her hurting too. Doesn't care if it's juvenile. That's how he feels.

"Oh, oh…you! You son of a bitch." she says simply but there is no real fire there. It's bland and she's still somewhat disengaged, as if she's not really there. "What the hell is your problem…? What about you - Juliet was it?! Your last time was with Juliet wasn't it?"

The way her nose becomes almost square at the tip when she sneers like that. And this is the moment she chooses to untie the knot of those damned pyjama bottoms, letting them fall to her feet. She steps out of them, flicks them up with her foot and throws them on the bed. Almost hitting him in the face. He catches them with one hand and holds them against his knee. Resisting the urge to bring them close to his nose and smell them.

"No - as a matter of fact it was with a busty Texan barmaid named Sylvie, but that ain't the point darling. – See, I ain't the one clinging to the past! I move on. I'm here now and…"

Her green eyes narrowed, almost hawk-like on him and he can tell that her temper is coming right back. Storming right back in, flapping it's wings. She does a little wiggling move and the next item to fall to her feet are a little pair of black boy-shorts. Innocent enough - but they make his mouth go dry and he stands up and makes his way towards her door, because he can't look at it. _Her. Like that._

"Yep right, because coming here is moving on, yep, yes. This, you and me is _**'moving on**_'? What kind of bullshit is this Sawyer?" Too pissed to be embarrassed now, and the move with the underwear seems planned, designed to bring him off his game. And it did. _He's just human for Pete's sake!_

For him sex is simple and the physical ache for her easy enough to explain. But this, _this_ other thing with her - _is anything but_. It isn't about the way her eyes on him can be enough to arouse him. It isn't even about the way he can't look at her without imagining himself inside of her. It's down to something more primitive, something he finds hard to admit. That illogical protectiveness he feels for her. That misplaced possessiveness, the illusion that somehow she's his. Because, hell – who is he kidding? _She hasn't ever really been his._

She lifts her arms up, twists her hair behind her head and fastens it with a simple rubber-band. The lift of the hair revealing her long, almost frail neck. And to think that less than an hour ago, she had bared that neck to him. He'd felt the palpitation of her heart there, right underneath the skin.

"Hell, I don't know. This morning you seemed pretty eager for us to move one to 'something' alright." He says, wistfully watching as she bends to step into the dry pair of underwear, almost identical to the ones she's just shed on the floor. And he follows her hands as she brings them up over her sleek thighs, disappearing so fast and deftly under the hem of the skirt that honestly, there is nothing indecent to see. _But his imagination is enough._

She stomps towards him, naked feet slapping against the floor almost obscenely. And that look on her face is so familiar that for a wild unguarded moment his heart gallops and he half expects her to leap at him again. _If only she would._ He'll be smoother this time. _Watch his words with her._

She's close enough now. He wants to sneak his hands up under the hem of her dress, follow the curve of her ass with his fingertips, pull her in. But he doesn't. Knows her well enough to know that a move like that, uninvited, would earn him a shiner or a broken nose for sure.

And as it turns out, he's right - this is no invitation. It's an expulsion and she does it so well. _Hell, she's done it often enough. _One hand on his bare chest, gently but resolutely nudging him backwards the last few steps towards the door.

"That, what happened earlier…it's never happening again. So you can just forget about it. It was _nothing_…"

He wraps his fingers around her wrist, distracted by how pale her white skin looks against his darker hand. Bends his head down. Closer.

"Didn't feel like nothing to me. I reckon _**I'm**_ not the one sprouting bullshit here."

She blinks nervously, but stares him straight in the eyes. The flutter of eyelashes around the moss-green of her irises as she figures out her next move.

"Well it was… I don't know… but it was nothing. - It's _**not**_ what I want."

"Alrightey then, if _'nothing'_ is shoving your hands down my boxers and _'not what you want '_ is making out like a bitch in heat... then sure. I believe you," he says tartly. Hating how the words come out all cruel, ham-fisted and cheap. And how they're not the words he'd rather say to her. Wants to bring her in close, hold her against him and whisper that - _they can be better than this_.

They _can._

"I just… I don't deny the attraction… don't deny that… but – _**I don't want this**_."

It fucking hurts to have it out in the open like that. Her fingers making indentations in his chest the way she leans in on him, trying to propel him through the door. But he's not done yet. Haven't blown it apart properly yet. The self destruction of him - with her.

"Well yeah,…It ain't exactly what I want either."

"That's what I thought.… "

The shape of her cupid's bow. He'd like to nab it with his lips, make her stop spewing out garbage. His shoulder the only thing still keeping the door open. Her legs wide apart to give her the leverage to push him the last little stretch. Get him the hell away from her. And he might be a big fat dim-witted fool, but he could have sworn, that she wanted him. This morning.

"Yeah, I want a woman who ain't so damn afraid of _everything_."

"Well then you should look elsewhere. That woman doesn't live here… she _never_ did," she says with that undeniable honesty that about blows him apart.

And the door closes almost gently in his face, like there is a minute amount of hesitation there on the other side. He leans his forehead against the glossy painted surface of it. His hand against the cold brass handle.

_She has a point. _It's all that he can think.

* * *

They spend the day surfing. Or rather attempting to surf. And she does her best to avoid looking at him. It's hard – damn hard.

She feels completely mortified by the though of it – throwing herself on him like that. She doesn't even want to think about it but the images keep coming at her. Him, his skin, the hands. The taste of him against her lips. The scent of him.

It's beyond her how she can be so drawn to him when she fears him like she does. Fears not being able to keep up, be what he needs. Give him what he wants. He's build her up to be some kind of holy grail that he just wants because Jack had wanted her. And failed. His insecurities are her biggest source of doubt. That, and her own fears.

She watches from the beach as he falls under a wave for the umpteenth time, clumsy and pig-headed as he is. He manages to scratch his leg, the whole stretch of his shin on the coral reef. He whines and bitches about it and from the sound of it you'd think he'd just lost half his leg. She can't help smiling at it, the great big fuss he makes of a little scrape like that. _He's such a baby._

It's Claire that brings him up to the house. Claire that helps wash off his wound and put a make-do bandage on him. Because she can't be near him. Doesn't trust herself after the events of this morning.

She needs to push him away, off from her mind. Needs to concentrate all of her wits on what is happening around her. Aaron and Claire. She needs to protect their little bubble, figure out her next move.

* * *

Late in the afternoon, she takes the bike and drives alone down to the little nearby village. Buys dinner for them there from a village woman, fried rice and some other things, vegetables and a spicy clear soup of sorts. She even manages to buy some Arak, a local alcoholic drink from an old man. He sells it from a thick bamboo container that he unplugs and the liquid is poured into old plastic water bottles. It's cloudy and sweet and smells strongly of alcohol. It appears it might be fairly deadly too.

Miles and Claire talk non-stop all through their little makeshift dinner in the living room, perched on the small art deco style armchairs. Teasing and badgering each other good-naturedly. In absolute contrast to him and her. Not a word is exchanged between them. The conversation inevitably flows through Claire and Miles as if they were unpaid, unwilling interpreters for them.

He, she notices drinks more of the horrible Arak than he eats. He leans back leisurely in his chair, his long jean-clad legs stretched out in front of him. The more he drinks the more she finds him staring at her. And every time she catches him, he crinkles up his whole face at her, that square kind of toothy smile he's got, deepening the lines around his eyes. Like a wolf trying to convince you that he really is domesticated, the he is in fact quite harmless in spite of the long sharp fangs. Something about that smile makes her blush. Every time.

It's unavoidable that Miles and Claire would pick up on it. The tension between them like a voltaic charge flitting across the room, and he does nothing to hide it. Nothing to make her more comfortable or to ease up the discomfiting atmosphere.

"So what's going on with you two?" Miles says, sounding jovial, almost happy, until she sees the little evil glint in his eyes.

"Yes what is?!.." Claire chips in with that bright and sunny and irritatingly innocent tone of voice. As if this is high school and they are a bunch of misfit classmates just hanging out.

"Nothing," she says quickly. Too quickly for it to sound even remotely genuine, feeling her eyelids clip nervously. "Absolutely nothing. I wouldn't make _that_ same mistake twice."

She doesn't know if she's really talking about this morning - or all of it.

Her falling like she did for him, way back then. The reluctant kind of infatuation that had just bored into her and refused to let up.

The stupidity of her, when she'd finally seen him back on the island again, standing there next to his Dharma jeep, his hair flickering in the wind and with that softness in his eyes. _She'd thought he'd been waiting for her. _And even though she knew she had no right because she had done exactly the same. And even though she knew she wasn't justified to feel like that, she'd been crushed to discover that he had played house with someone else. That she was so easily replaced. And that it was _her _– Juliet – who he'd chosen to replace her with. Ironic considering that she'd only started coming in to his tent, because of _her_ and Jack.

"I have pretty fond memories of your 'mistakes' though hon'…"

That snooty, snide smirk, nodding to himself. The bobbing of his head, eyes half closed. He just continues to drink. His shirt a bit askew and his hair on its end, a ruddy boozed-up look about him. She knows it's small-minded, but she hopes he will wake up with a hell of a headache tomorrow.

"I don't know, but the way you guys are all over each other,.. it just seems…" Claire leans forward towards him as if she expects to get some kind of inside information from him that she couldn't obtain from Kate. "So why did you break up?"

"How about you and Miles?" she says to Claire just to goad Miles for having the nerve to bring the topic up on the agenda in the first place. " You guys toge…?"

"Anyone wanna' play cards?" Miles interrupts, realizing that the direction in which the conversation is flowing is risky, and he's got his own interests to look after. No one pays any attention to him. It's too late to bring this back onto steady ground.

"I'm really curious about why you ever split up? – You just seem to have something still…" Claire repeats, disregarding Kate entirely. _Damn, she is a nosy one!_

Kate finds herself unable to refrain from rolling her eyes at the stupidity of the comment. _Especially_ since the subject of the matter is sitting there, slobbering over a water bottle filled with that rather questionable moonshine, sipping it as if it were a fine old Scotch.

"Well, _her_ story is that I skipped on her. But mine… Well girl, I reckon the little missus' was still hung up on that other hubby of hers…Reckon she still is. Went scampering straight to_ him too_, ain't that so Honey Pie? Even popped the question to ya' again - didn't he, the poor sap?"

She hates it when he does the dumbing-down thing, putting on that innocent redneck act. But she guesses that's the cleverness of him. He'd had them all fooled on the island too at first, playing the role of that obnoxious jerk flawlessly.

"You went _back_ to that abusive guy?" Claire looks quizzically at Kate and she knows, _knows_, that lie won't stick much longer. Especially not if _he'll _keep filling up on the Arak and leading the discussion into these shaky territories.

"Sure did," he grins at her as if it's no skin off his nose. _None at all._ But underneath it, she sees that insecurity he's got. That puzzling lack of confidence.

"So what was that about not making the same mistake twice?" Kate hates the judgmental tone that has crept into Claire's voice.

"He wasn't too bad old Jacko'" Sawyer slurs now. "Just a pompous ass all around that didn't know how to keep his woman happy..."

"Oh,.. that's rich. As if you did?!" She can't help it. She gives up talking through Claire and Miles.

"I bet I could…. Keep you happy, that is… " And though he's drunk and insufferable, the way he says it, with his head cocked to the side and the top front teeth biting down on his bottom lip – it just ignites something in her.

"Yeah, well, we'll never now about that now – will we?"

He glowers at this, jaw shooting out and, eyebrows knitted together. He looks so much like a caricature of himself, she almost has to laugh.

"But that guy Jack,… the one that you're so scared off. You went back to him!? I still don't get all of this. And why did you tell Danan we're running from my… ex.. whatever? Why not just tell him the truth?"

"I don't know - I was embarrassed about it I guess. – Jack wasn't the man I hoped he would be. I've made some bad choices in my life, that's all and I'm not really proud of either one of them, " she says, hoping _he_ will hear the truth in this and lay off the subject and that _she_ will just accept the lie. But the lies are getting more and more ridiculous by the minute. She can't believe Claire still has a grain of trust in her.

"Whadda'ya mean _'either one of them'_?" he grumbles like a sulking little boy. "All I know is that you didn't waste time moving on to your rebound guy – that's for sure."

She looks at the wreck of a man in front of her, shirt unbuttoned a couple of button to many for it to be acceptable. The expanse of skin visible in the gap, deeply perturbing. She is certain now that he'll have a hell of a hang over in the morning.

"You're really one to talk James. You were with a new woman two minutes after your little disappearing act."

"Well, shoot me," he mutters taking another generous swig from the little plastic bottle. That annoying self pitying voice. "I was lonely."

_So was I_, she wants to say. Claire stretches her legs and arms, yawning like a cute little kitten and the sweet gesture is not lost on Miles she notices.

"Oops," she says bending down for something on the floor. "Sorry, kicked over your bag James."

When she sits up again, she is smiling playfully. And then Kate's eyes fall on the thing in Claire's hand.

_A passport. _

The first thing that comes to mind is her own passport and how she'd fought Sawyer for it and she almost dives forward before realizes that this isn't hers. The format is all wrong. For one thing it doesn't say 'Canada' right on top.

_It's his. _

As Claire leisurely flips open the pages, that light-hearted smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, eyes curious as they survey the content. Kate's tired brain tries frantically to grasp for something. Why is she holding her breath? _Why is this a really bad thing – for her to see it?_… _Why?_

That's when Claire's smile stiffens, and a little huffed sound escapes her, as if she's just sucked up all the air of the room. And she might as well have. – She turns the passport around, holding it up and glares at Kate.

"Thought his name was LaFleur… you said you made that Ford thing up. I'm confused now… Who were you actually married to Kate?"

"_Him_," she says throatily with a terse dip of the head towards Sawyer.

And he's smiling. _He's actually smiling!_ As if he can't wait to trip her up. She marvels at this, him and the vindictiveness that she doesn't quite understand.

"Funny - because this one clearly says Ford!"

Claire is eerily calm and no one dares to move.

"So what is it?....Any more resentful spouses that you guys are hiding out from? Could you explain what's going on? I don't get it…at all." She taps the passport cover with the nail of her index finger. Miles leans his lower arms on his thighs, staring doggedly down on the floor. Kate can't meet her eyes either. Can't think of another plausible lie, can't think of anything else that wouldn't just make this worse.

"I wish I could Claire,…"

Sawyer just sits there, relaxed as ever twirling the last of the Arak around by swinging the bottle in a small circle, two fingers around it's neck. Maybe he's too far gone to realize the ramifications of this. _Maybe. _Or the more likely explanation; he just doesn't care. He thinks she deserves this.

"I think I'll just call it a night…" Claire says softly and puts the passport down on the little table, carefully as if it might explode and Kate can almost hear how her thoughts spark and flicker inside her head. She says nothing more, just rises up, all young dignity and grace and leaves them there.

_The murderer, the conman and the one who can speak to the dead._

"Well, this was fun. Think I'll go star-gaze a bit before tucking myself in…" Sawyer says, his shaky fingers trawling his breast pocket for a cigarette and his matches. "Coming Sweet Cakes?..."

She can't answer. Can't even look at him.

"Suit yourself… I'll go by my lonesome…"

He rises up, somewhat unsteadily and she stretches out her left leg in front of her, hoping he will trip on it. He doesn't. He just takes a long wobbly step over her, steadying himself with a hand on her shoulder. Fingers brushing by her cheek as if by chance as he passes. Miles and Kate remain seated there, alone in the room.

"Shit,." she says under breath.

"Yeah. That's the technical word for it. Shit!"

* * *

_Please review if you liked it. _

_I know it looks like it's going nowhere, but honestly, I have a plan with this. It's just taking me a while to get there…_

_Hope it doesn't bore you to death._


	16. Belongs to another

_Tsol, Gabardine, Yema, Boo2ubam,TrappedInAMatchbox, Dela, layla, Angela, Simsi, Torchwood, Judith, Heidi...and all others. Thank you thank you thank you for not loosing your patience with this story, for still reading and for leaving your reviews. _

_I apologize for the ridiculous length of this chapter. Before I knew it, it had reached an absurd word count and I gave up on trying to edit it down._

_Rated M. for the usual swearing and perhaps some mature content…_

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it_

* * *

**Belongs to another**

* * *

She's washing her face in the old sink between the cupboards. The water is soothingly cool against her face. Her skin is almost painfully saturated after a day under the Balinese sun. She can feel it, the way her shoulders burn, almost from within.

She scoops up handful after handful of water as she hears the door open behind her. A light little creaking sound that makes her immediately reach for the little towel hanging off the brass hook next to her, wiping the water away from her eyes. But it's not like she has to turn around. She knows who it is already. He's come back for more. She knows this Sawyer, the one that's all liquored up and over-sexed, and doesn't quite know what to do with himself. He seems to follow some sinister inner radar, some innate compass that relentlessly searches out conflicts. As if he needs them to live. Needs something from her.

_He is so damn predictable._

He gives off this air of being a loner, someone who goes his own way and doesn't need anyone else – when all she can see is this pathetic man that panics at the thought of being insignificant. Never one to follow the path of least resistance. Anything is better than that. Better to be hated, better to be disliked than ignored and trivial.

She straightens up her back and glances at him in the old mirror with it's fine spider-web cracks and what she sees makes her spin around, towel still clenched in her fist.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Claiming the bed Cutiepooh." he says, wringing his shirt off and flinging himself headlong on it making the springs protest with a whiny metallic noise. Her first instinct is to snap him with the towel in her hand but just the obnoxious look of him, that long, lean frame of his that just owns the room makes her lose the thought. She hates her own inconsistency when it comes to him. The constant pendulum of her own heart.

He folds his arms behind his head, looking at her under heavy hooded eyes. Red-shot, unfocused and glassy. Extremely satisfied with himself as if he's just managed pull a really complicated con on her. His nose is red, probably more from the liqueur than the sun. _That and the head-butt._ There is still a fair amount of swelling

"What! No, no you're not! Definitely not."

He thinks he's so damn cute.

The worn, somewhat baggy jeans, low on his hips. A tiny little gap between smooth skin and light blue fabric where it stretches between the hipbones. And just _that_ little detail might have been enough to make her fall on top of the bed with him if it weren't for the cruel glint in his eyes and the smell of Arak on his breath discernable all the way from across the room.

"Ha, alright then, try stopping me! Come on girl, you know ya' wanna'." he says, the delighted dare of his voice. The alcohol making his accent stronger than usual, the drawl long and lazy and stirring. "Go ahead! Try getting me out of here and I'll show you how much I want this… _bed_."

He slaps his palm against the mattress. He's almost giggling, his eyes in narrow slits now. He is a lot drunker than she'd originally thought. He has that uncontrollable sniggering going on that makes her want to crack a chair over his big blonde head.

_Great! A drunk in her bed. Just what she needs. _Sawyer – blind drunk in her bed.

"You can stay on the sofa!" she says, finding herself snapping her fingers in the direction of the door, like you might a dog. But he's no dog, at least not an obedient one. More a naughty, unmanageable mutt, than anything else.

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna'. Ain't gonna' sleep another night on a sofa or a floor or anything but a bed…. _** Your**_ bed as it happens. See my back is a bit sore,.. some wildcat shoved me against a wall this morning…"

"No, you're not – you can't stay here!"

It's a stupid and useless protest because she already knows she has lost this. It's a superfluous reaction. There is no way on earth she can physically throw him out and she knows that he is just hoping that she'll give it a try. He looks at her slyly, arching the eyebrows in that maddening trademark way of his. It looks crooked somehow, sluggish and distorted. Seductive is about the last thing you could call it.

"You're welcome to join me darling. Come on, I'll let you share my pillow. Unlike _**some**_, I ain't stingy."

She feels the hair on top of her head lift for every turn the ceiling fan takes and for some reason it annoys the hell out of her.

"Oh, I see where this is going... So you think I'll just jump into bed with you… After all the horrible things you said tonight! I'd rather go and sleep in a ditch!"

"Ya' go ahead an' do that honey,… might actually be better than that miserable thing they call sofa out there." He turns his back on her tugging the sheet over himself, and really, she has no choice.

"I might as well. Can't smell worse than it does in here. Old sweaty wino…" She knows it's a spiteful thing to say, but then again, he's hardly taking it to heart.

"Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite." he grunts sleepily, looking far too cosy.

She tries snatching the top sheet off him and he actually makes her fight him for it. Strong tan fists grappling to hold on to the thin cotton linen, straining with his feet underneath. Like a little irritating boy. She isn't giving this one up. _s_. She keeps pulling and twisting and turning to catch him off guard. Thinking that she'll rather rip it to shreds than let him have it. She is just about to step it up a notch when suddenly he just let go, causing her to tumble backwards. The cheesy half smirk tells her that this was his exact intention and for a second she thinks he'll go after her, try to take it back but he must be too drunk, too drowsy to get up. She gathers up her pyjamas and the sheet in her arms and pokes the door open with her right foot when she hears him, still with his back turned against her.

"Which one of those things you found so horrible Sweets?..." He mumbles lethargically, the sound subdued and slurred against the pillow. "Bet t'was the one about making … I could ya' know… I would sure as hell give it a try if…"

"Goodnight James."

He lifts his head up from the fluffy depth of the pillow, twists it in the direction of the door and peers at her with one eye open the other shut. Slothfully. And she knows, here it comes; another unwanted sexual invitation, another joke at her expense. His voice, almost purring, that drawn-out Southern twang. Enough to raise the hair on her neck

"You know I could don't you?… I could make ya'…"

And she turns in her tracks, suddenly the emotions that have been simmering all day boil over. _How dare he! _How dare he get drunk and start babbling about them! This is all his fault from beginning to end – all his damn fault. How dare he risk everything that ever meant anything to her? Making everything she loves, everything she cares about into one big fat joke? Sacrificing it all for a fleeting moment of entertainment - for him. And to think that she had actually thought that behind it all - there was a human being, a man that cared for her. A man that had the potential to mean something more to her. She can't see it now, just his shallowness, and his petty heartlessness.

"You could make me what?" she sneers, feeling her face contort with the anger. Bringing her dangerously close to tears. "Let me guess,.. you could make me lose my mind over you, make me come like a freight train on speed…what? What Sawyer, what on earth could _**you**_ make me do?"

He closes the one open eye, squinting it shut as if her voice is hurting his head. And she's sort of hoping it is. His voice a low snarl that makes her think of a dog growling, raising its fur because it feels threatened.

"Yeah, I could do those things too. You _**know**_ I could. But that's not what I was gonna' say…" He drops the volume down further and it's all a mumble into the pillow and she's not really sure she's hearing what she thinks she's hearing. " If you weren't so damn bull-headed… if you weren't so damn skittish, I reckon I might be able to make you…. happy… "

His voice slides slightly, dipping down at the _'happy'_ as if it's a perverted word – a dirty joke. He turns his head back away from her as if he didn't really say any of it. As if he doesn't want to own up to it. _Make her happy? _She waits for him to continue, make some sleazy wisecrack comment about how damn deft he is in bed. But he says nothing more.

_Happy. _In what twisted version of reality could they ever make each other happy for more than a few stolen seconds?

_Just the liqueur talking_, she reminds herself and closes the door behind her. She hopes he will have forgotten it all by the morning, and considering his advanced level of intoxication – she'd say there is a pretty good chance of that.

She spreads the sheet out on the sofa, burrows down in the pillow but she already knows, she won't sleep. Her skin is painfully hot and her eyes sting from the intensity of spending the whole day in the sun. She wedges herself sideways, letting one arm hang off the sofa, fingertips touching the cool floor.

The picture of him burned into her consciousness, of what is underneath all that crap. That first kiss, when she'd spotted it for the first time, behind all the hair and the phoney overconfidence, a desperation that had almost had her recoiling. How she knows he can be, when he isn't masquerading behind that cocky, arrogant mask.

It's daunting to think of the enormity of the baggage he comes equipped with. It scares her – _he_ scares her. The way he fizzles under the surface, that irrefutable need, the unrestrained hunger for approval. _It scares her and she's not sure she could handle it._ That insecurity in him, the fragile ego that needs constant affirmation. Like a smoke screen that prevents him from seeing _this _for what it is; who she is.

_He would never be able to understand. Not in a million years. _

How the heavy feel of an arm or a leg, the way he smells, like too much man, is enough to unhinge her. He wouldn't understand the panic of a too clamorous hold on her, of a too hard grip around her wrists. Wouldn't be able to comprehend that you can love someone but be unable to give yourself away. Because you have nothing of substance left to give.

That thing about her, that horrible thing about her that makes her who she is. Something so shameful – it's unspeakable.

This. She doesn't even want to think about it. Doesn't want to reason with herself, why he and she, can't be. Why she is here right now, not in there with him. Why, much as she'd want to believe it, he couldn't ever make her happy.

* * *

_Tom, Kevin, and even Jack, s_he could deal with those men and had chosen them for that reason. The unthreatening, undemanding, not overtly sexual men. Men she could easily manipulate into a safer pace, into _her_ pace. Men that wouldn't fall apart over her refusal, wouldn't question it so hard, and wouldn't need that perpetual, exhausting reassurance.

_Though as it turned out, she'd been wrong about Jack._

She had wanted something different. Afraid to replicate her mother's volatile relationship - Jack had seemed to promise the opposite. When she'd realized that his calm and logical exterior was just a façade she had felt betrayed. She'd felt like such an idiot.

She knows that everyone has their demons but Jack's had been such a startling discovery and she'd felt so foolish, so incredibly foolish. A feeling magnified a thousand-fold by seeing Juliet and Sawyer's little happy domestic life with the Dharma Initiative. Clearly she had put her bets on the wrong horse and gotten exactly what she'd tried to avoid. An explosive, unpredictable man – the drugs and the alcohol just the crowning glory of her failure.

Jack had come to visit her once, only once, while she was under arrest. It had been during those first days, when she'd paced the room like a caged animal. He'd looked tired and despondent and she had felt complete apathy towards him for the first time ever. She hadn't even tried to pretend to be that women, the women that he'd made her out to be. A women so far from her reality, it had been like assuming an alias. The unexpected indifference had come as a relief. He had sat with his shoulders bunched up, stubbornly looking at his hands, refusing to meet her eyes. She had watched the top of his head, the brown short hair and she had known then that this was really a goodbye. Nothing else.

"I know you don't see it now, but it's good that you finally took responsibility for your actions."

"I don't need a lecture Jack. I am not here out of remorse. I _didn't_ turn myself in and if I could run - I would."

_It was true too. _

She'd never felt an ounce of regret over what she'd done that night. In fact she still thought she'd done humanity a great whopping service the day she'd flicked that Grateful Dead lighter at the house. But that wasn't the reason she did it. She had made a choice. Taken a decision. _Not to be a victim_. Anymore.

It had taken her so many years to finally get to the point where she had understood that there was only one way to end it and that it was a choice between her own life - or _his_.

She had long toyed with the idea, of cutting herself loose. She had. Countless were the times when she'd picked the lock leading to the roof of the mall. The tallest building in their little pathetic town. She would climb up on the short ledge that run around it and stare down the drop below, the wind lifting her hair, making her coat flap around her.

_Is it high enough?_

She'd been sixteen the first time. She'd obsessively searched the internet for stories about people that had plunged to their death. Sixth floor, seventh floor, some disappointing miracle stories of people that had survived absurdly high drops. The mall, with its measly four stories. She had imagined flinging herself off the building, flying through the air, one last flight of freedom, of doing the right thing. And then – _not dying_. Ending up in a wheel chair. Her mother would surely have her institutionalized and him,_ he. No._ That option had too many holes, too many shaky outcomes. She had needed to make sure. She had had to end it once and for all. She couldn't live another day as a victim, as another meaningless, negligible small-town statistic.

And she had known there would be consequences, of course she had.

But she can't honestly say it wasn't worth it, watching the _victim_ explode and burn, flames shooting high against the night sky. _The victim_; incinerated into flying flakes of ash twirling in the gusts from the blazing fire, together with her old toys, her yearbooks and him, him – the one who made her who she is. Her only regret, that she hadn't had the guts to do it ten years earlier. The only thing – the one and only thing that she'd done right in her life.

And this she knows, this Jack could never understand.

_How someone would rather be a murderer than a victim._

"I'm sorry Kate," he had mumbled and made to stand up. A short visit. She knew he'd come here to justify what he'd done. And maybe it was small of her, but she didn't want to give him that. Didn't want to take away his guilt.

"Thank you Jack, that's really very helpful," she'd said, finding that she didn't have it in her to take the higher road.

Just for a fleeting moment she'd been appalled by him. _How he'd fooled her._ Masquerading like some kind of ideal man, someone she'd never be good enough for. He'd looked up at her then and the naked pain in his eyes had startled her out of these thoughts. She hadn't expected it. She'd stared back at him suddenly realizing that he was high as a kite.

She'd felt the emotions bunching up in the middle of her throat. But she couldn't show it. _Not to him. _

"I'm sorry too Jack." She said it mostly because it really didn't cost her anything to say those words and perhaps, perhaps it could help him in some insignificant, minor way. But she honestly couldn't say she was sorry for anything that had happened. Perhaps only for believing he would in some abstract way be able to redeem her, save her - when he couldn't even save himself.

"No Kate – I'm _really_ sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't the one for you – couldn't be what you needed me to be. So sorry,…." He had mumbled on while walking towards the door, knocking to call the guard's attention. And as the heavy grey door closed behind him, the metallic sound of the lock turning, intermingled with a the chronic desolation she'd learned to associate with him – she'd felt a lightness she'd not experienced in years.

There is nothing safe, nothing pleasant for her to occupy her mind on, nothing that will give her rest. Least of all _him_, the one that came after her. He'd travelled around the world, searched her out. Dewi had a point, it hardly seems like a casual_, nothing better to do_ thing. But even if that's the case, she doesn't know what to do about it. Doesn't know what she _can_ do about it.

_Sawyer. In there. In her bed._

Her instincts tell her that she should just go in there, crawl into bed with him and follow the surge of need that would inevitably catch up with her. But she knows it can never be that easy. She can't take that and not expect to have to pay back. And the currency he wants his dues in, she isn't familiar with. She can't give him what he wants.

She tosses and turns and grits her teeth at how the armrest digs into her neck. It's not important she tells herself, and tries swallowing it down. That persistent longing for something she can't even be sure really exists. She doesn't understand this, about him and her. How she can be infuriated with him one second and want him the next. It's not really something she wants to understand about herself. She wants to deny it, make it go away. She has to keep her mind in the game now and his presence is enough to make her fumble. That today, _unforgivable_.

That look on Claire's face, she almost doesn't dare to think of it, of what it might signify.

It hurts to admit it, to concede that he may have been right about it when he'd said that this wouldn't last. _Then again, when was she ever able to make anything last?_ She wishes there was a way to tell Claire. But what could she tell her? The truth!

_Hey, not really your sister but I was engaged to your brother. We crashed on an island and you disappeared. Actually I believe I'm your son's mother. Oh, and by the way – time travel, anyone?_

What the hell could she say? - That she took her baby though she didn't even know if she'd be able to raise him, one foot in jail the other one flighty and unstable. That they came back to find her and instead ended up time-travelling thirty odd years back and that _her_ brother subsequently blew the whole place apart and they ended up right where they started. Anything even remotely resembling the truth would make her sound clinically insane or deeply disturbed at any rate.

She knows that she should start preparing herself for the inevitable loss. Maybe that bastard sleeping in her bed in there is right after all. Maybe it is time that she did wake up, and really, chances are they would be better off without her. But to make that leap, to actually give up on them, on that little boy – she just doesn't think she could survive that.

It is hard enough to lie here on the sofa and know that she has no right to just go in and pick him up from his cot. To walk around in the darkened room with him, his warm little body pressed to her chest, feeling the clammy sweetness of his cheek against hers. She has no right to do that because he doesn't belong to her, he isn't hers. Never was and never will be.

She can hardly bear to think about it. The ache makes it hard to breathe and there is not enough oxygen in the room. It's warm and humid and she is a fool. An idiot for thinking she could ever have him. He belongs to another.

So does he. _Sawyer._ James. She knows he won't be happy with her. Sure, he'd be happy for a few hours, a few days. The attraction, the inevitable pull would keep him occupied for a little while. But he'd soon tire of her, the desire would wear off. He'd be happy until he'd figured out that there isn't anything inside, nothing of value, no mystery woman inside. That there just isn't enough of her. She can't be that woman.

She used to think of them as, if not kindred spirits, then two of a kind. Bad eggs. She used to think they were equally hopeless, equally screwed up and had found a strange sense of comfort in that. It had always been part of the strong connection she'd felt with him. But that has changed and it rips her apart to admit that he is miles ahead of her.

_- How long do you think we can play house?_

_- Why don't we find out?_

She hadn't thought him capable. And it's humiliating to realize that it's _she_, she who doesn't have it in her. She, who is too split, too fractured to be able to give him what he wants.

He is a full cup and she is a dirty drop at the bottom of one.

* * *

_He can't sleep for shit as usual. _

His head spinning like a damn Ferris wheel. In spite of having consumed considerable amount of booze. He'll be the first to admit that the bed is a total waste on him. Instead of drunk and lulled, he's edgy and nervous and most of all, he can't stop thinking of her, out there on the sofa.

And damn - he'd thought she might have given in, fallen back into the bed with a sigh and let him sleep there, next to her. He turns and the old bedsprings screech at every minute movement.

_If she'd been here, if she'd been different._

The room is in semi darkness. A little bare light-bulb still on above the ancient ceramic sink. The whirring of the old ceiling fan should be soothing and calming but tonight it does exactly the opposite. The droning sound grinds on his nerves and he'd consider getting up to turn it off if only he could be bothered. With every swish, swish that it goes around a gust of cool air comes over him. He wishes he'd worn his shirt, because the air makes him feel cold and she'd appropriated the top sheet. But he can't bring himself to put it on again.

Wosh, wosh, wosh. The sound of the blades is like Chinese water torture. And it bugs the hell out of him even though he ought to be sloshed enough to be beyond caring.

He's just about to get up and smoke, perhaps offer her to switch when a sound makes his heart stop. The soft slick sound of bare feet against the old tile floor.

_Please. Make her come here. Make her lie down. _

He keeps his eyes shut tightly. Pretends to be fast asleep and has to fight not to twitch when he feels the bed sink down on his left side, the indentation of her bringing the mattress down. His heart elates at the sensation of her weight on the left side of him and he has to concentrate to keep his breathing even and sleep-like. She must be clinging to the edge because she doesn't even brush into him. But he knows she's there. He can smell her. That scent of hers, that makes him want to thrash about in bed. Wants to disappear into her.

He remembers how she'd sneak into his tent, take what she wanted and get the hell out of there. He'd lie there, with his guard down, revelling in the way her warm skin would stick to his afterwards. Of all the women he's been with, he'd never experienced that complete role reversal with anyone before.

In his experience, what women want; a little emotional connection to validate a completely physical, mindless release. And he can't say he minds the post-sex cuddling up, the pillow talk, it's all part of his act. But with her, that notion had been turned on its head like many other things. He'd been the one with the foolish impulse to cuddle up to her, hold on to her. Foolish - because she'd be curled up stiffly by his side, looking like she'd committed some kind of heinous crime. Like she was ashamed of herself, regretted her wantonness and couldn't wait to get away.

For him, sex is straightforward. It is what he does – what he markets and sells. It's at the core of him. It's about the only side of himself that he has never had any doubts about, and that someone could feel so irately conflicted about it as she does, for him is simply incomprehensible.

He fakes a moan as if he's deeply asleep and turns sideways towards her, edging an arm around her waist and pulls her lightly against him. Just a little sleepy nudge. Doesn't want to give himself away. Moves his head a little closer too, so that her hair tickles his nose.

She is stiff. Her whole body rigid. That armadillo stance that she has. He knows that's who she is – he just wishes it were different. He doesn't even want to think about it, _why _she is like she is.

Even now, after all these years and an eternity since _that_ morning at the barracks, he still finds it hard to think about it. How irrational her reaction had been to him goofing around with her. The way she'd frozen as he clasped her wrists above her head, putting his weight on her, just getting in to it. At the time he had felt childishly hurt by her rejection, and to be honest, that hurt still lingers. But somehow with the years that have passed – the distance between them - he has come to another conclusion altogether. A deduction so hideous and ugly, he can barely stomach thinking about it. That it was never about him.

_Some son of a bitch __**did**__ this_.

Stole this part away from her. And from him too as a consequence. He shoves it all away. Doesn't want these revolting thoughts in his mind, not now. Not with her here. That silly hopefulness that always wins over his wits with her.

"I know you're awake," she hisses to him. "You can stop pretending"

" I ain't the one pretending. Aw come here girl. Let's pick it up where we stopped…"

"I'm just sleeping here because the sofa is,…too short."

"Wasn't too short for Miles…"

"Well it _is_ for me."

"Why can't you just admit that you just want a little company?"

"Just keep your hands to yourself," she nips back. "My elbow is rearing to have another go at your nose… Just so you know…" She flexes her arm to emphasise the gravity of this threat. And it makes him smile. He knows she won't do it. Not now. She's come because, she needs something from him. What exactly, he is too buzzed to figure out, but perhaps she just doesn't want to be alone. _Doesn't want you. _Maybe he's just a late night stand-in for someone else, some one that she misses. But she's here now, it's all that matters.

"You got it baby…" he says and only hugs her harder, sniffing her hair properly now. Openly. Spreads his fingers wide across the flat of her stomach. "Kate, I … I'm…"

"Shut up." She says but she lets him.

"Yes Ma'm." And he's got all intentions on doing just that. It's just that, the smell of her and the warmth of her back against his chest, her ass in the nook. He just can't.

"So tell me Freckles; what would have happened if our dear friend Hugo hadn't knocked on that bathroom door at that very instance?"

"I said shut up…" she says with a little less certainty.

He releases his grip around her and draws his hand upwards, between her shoulder blades, carefully lifting her hair up, brushing it away. Baring the slim nape of her neck. He has to stifle a sigh as he pushes his nose against the skin there, his lips against her pulse. And he swears she holds her breath as he does.

There is something inebriatingly sensual about this part of a woman. As if her essence is concentrated here, right here in this spot.

* * *

His mouth dangerously commoving just below her jaw. His fingers toying with the fine hairs at the back of her neck.

"This is what I recon would have happened…" he says and the rest he whispers hotly against the curl of her ear. She is grateful for the relative darkness that hides the sudden flush to her cheeks. She hates how easily she blushes, doesn't dare answering for the heat that spreads down there at the pit of her stomach and further down.

"You know I ain't never been selfish darling…" he mumbles.

She knows that this is the plain truth. He isn't a selfish man and though she realizes that it must be of a certain necessity in his profession, it never was with her. This is perhaps what gets to her.

The memory of that generosity, so in contrast with his overtly arrogant, self-gratifying persona. She remembers those nights in his tent. _Bittersweet._ The not wanting him and having to have him anyway. His hands and lips on her and the foreign sensation of not having to give anything. All him – for her. His release short, perfunctory – while hers would be brought about painstakingly slow and leisurely. With the sense of him, genuinely taking pride in bringing her there. And the way she involuntarily arches her back against him.

But she can't go there. Not now. _Not ever._ He'd find out, sooner or later, he'd compare her to Juliet, come to his senses and realize that she is nothing. Not a complete person.

"You do remember, dontcha' baby?"

"Shut the fuck up and sleep". She says, secretly enjoying how his hand comes back to rest on her waist. How he feels hard against her buttocks.

" Hey Princess, unless you've got condoms with ya' and are planning on using them, you better stop doing that thing with your little cute behind … " he groans against her neck.

"Oh, okay… Sorry…I guess."

"That's alright Freckles. Just messin' with ya'…"

* * *

And Jayzus, he feels like he's just won the fuckin' lottery; this paltry little thing. Her letting him hold her like that. His hand resting just where her waist dips, on a little stretch of skin between her top and her pyjama bottoms. Restraining himself to keep it there, not allowing it to wander. Scared that he'll frighten her off.

He can hardly believe it when her back seems to soften and her breathing starts slowing down, and he realizes that she has fallen asleep.

The triumph of her in his arms. _In his fucking arms_.

Almost four years since he's had her like this. And he'd thought he'd moved on, had convinced himself that he had, that it wasn't worth it. It's so late and he doesn't dare move his hand, afraid she'll wake up and change her mind about sleeping here. So he is the one who ends up lying there stiff as a floorboard feeling ridiculously content.

* * *

He wakes up, on his stomach, sprawled across the bed. He lets swipes his arm across her side behind him, hoping to run into her, feel her solid shape under his hand. But there is nothing there except a pile of bunched up sheets. The realization that he's alone hits him hard. _Alone._ She'd left him there, sometime during the night.

_Of course she has. She always does. _

His hair is wet from perspiration, sticking to his forehead and his mouth is parched. The taste; beyond revolting. It's been a while since he's drunk this much, he doesn't know what drove him to it. Only that she – she must be at the root of it.

His head is pounding with what promises to be the beginning of a spectacular migraine. She is nowhere to be seen. And for a second he wonders if it was all a drunken dream. Her curling up next to him, letting him hold her. But it was real. _It did happen_. The proof of it there beside him, makes him smile through the pulsating pain of his head. He rests his fingertips in the hollow of the pillow next to him, where her head has rested and made a round indentation and can't help bringing it to his face. That smell of her. For a while, she had slept next to him.

_He's got to go find her._ Maybe today will be different. Maybe this is a turning point.

He knows it's absurd, ridiculous to think like this. Contrary to the evidence he isn't a teenage boy jacked up on raging hormones – he is a grown man who ought to know a hell of a lot better. _But he can't help it._ Feeling serene in spite of the hangover, that little, immense victory – her sleeping next to him. _Like that_. Feeling how the double knot is finally giving way, loosening its resolve ever so slightly.

* * *

_Please leave a review if you liked it… Hope you did._


	17. Another dead end

_Thank you so much for the amazing reviews! Skunji, Rain, Phoebsfan Judith,…others. Tsol: yeah my guess is that Kate would feel pretty inadequate comparing herself to Juliet and that's a big part of what holds her back. Delamik & Gabardine: I also get annoyed with these two. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard for two people who obviously have pretty intense feelings for each other to get it together. I hope this next chapter doesn't disappoint even though Kate might still be stubbornly refusing to move along with the story. (I don't think she'd be Kate if everything was smooth sailing though...)_

_Rated M. for the usual swearing and there is a fair bit of sexual material in this chapter, so if that isn't your thing just skip it… Oh, and it's another atrociously long chapter... sorry about that._

_Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it._

* * *

**Another dead-end**

* * *

He wobbles out through the glass doors. His mouth tastes like he's been chewing on a dead racoon and the headache, corroding his brain from the inside. The pain is like something happening to someone else, he doesn't even want to acknowledge it. Bad enough, the way his innards seem to twirl around in there. The queasiness rising like bile in his throat. He moves slowly, shading his eyes from the merciless sun but does his best to pretend unaffected. He doesn't want to give her the pleasure to gloat over his hangover.

She's there on the porch, having coffee and eating fried bananas with Miles and Claire. She looks goofy when she tears into the little golden batter covered banana, savage-like, as if she was just chomping down on a bloody steak. Specks of sugar on her lips and on her chin. He loves how simply atrocious her table manners are, have always been. The way she will lick her fingers unconsciously, wipe her chin hurriedly against the whole stretch of her arm. Eating as if she is absolutely famished, always.

There is something disturbingly sensual about this sloppiness, something completely unselfconscious and natural, so unlike the usual guarded wariness of her. Forgetting herself in face of something delicious, shamelessly taking pleasure as it comes, greedily and ravenously.

Already dressed with her dark hair collected messily on the top of her head, curls and stray strands falling around her face. She's wearing a bright red t-shirt and a pair of military style cargo pants. Boyish and feminine at the same time. The red nail polish on her toes is chipping and her skin is clean and void of make-up, just the way he likes it. About a million little freckles burned harshly into her skin, so many they are starting to merge together. A hangdog look about her as she looks up at him, as if she's been up to something appalling.

_Like sneaking into his bed._

There is a distance between her and Claire today, an invisible network of tension pulling in different directions this morning. He can almost see the intangible lines drawn sharply across the terrace, borders being raised between them. Something has changed and he has a feeling that he and his incoherent, drunken jabbering last night might be to blame for this. Not that he feels guilty, _not at all._

She chucks down the last of the frittered banana, predictably first licking the tips of her fingers, thereafter wiping them on the front of her shirt. She picks up her cup from the ledge behind her. It strikes him how small and sad she looks, standing there, clasping her coffee cup with both hands just at level with her chest. A watchful stance as if she's afraid someone might snatch the cup away from her. It makes him want to shake her out of it and force her to take courage. _Fight for this,_ for Claire and Aaron, if it's as damn important as she says it is.

"Here, have some," Claire says chucking him the paper wrap. " Miles got them down at the village. You can take the mug over there. There's fresh coffee in it"

It's strangely touching that someone's prepared a cup for him too. He stupidly wishes it was Kate's handiwork but he suspects that it's Claire's.

"You feeling okay buddy?" Miles asks next to him. A put-on concerned tone that makes Sawyer want to laugh at him.

"Sure. Any reason I shouldn't..?" he says just boorishly enough to make Miles drop the bloody subject.

Kate says nothing, studiously avoiding him, pretending he's not even there. The coffee is steaming hot, fragrant and sweet but does absolutely nothing to soothe the soreness of waking up alone. His stomach is churning, and he has to steady his breathing not to throw up. His hand shakes as he brings a piece of fried banana up to his mouth.

Danan hasn't returned yet, like he'd said he would. Not that Sawyer misses him. _In fact, the asshole could stay away forever for all that he cares._

Miles downs his coffee as if he's in a hurry to get somewhere and perhaps he is. As soon as Aaron gives up his angry morning cry Miles sets off behind Claire indoors as if he's already assumed the parental responsibility for that wailing little piglet.

They are left there, standing across from each other, deeply occupied with their coffee cups. She stares down intently, as if her mug has a widescreen TV inside and it's ridiculous how she can be all over him one moment and ignoring him the next.

"So... _ain't _you gonna' say 'morning', Princess?"

"Morning Princess!" she repeats mechanically into her cup, the sound hollow inside of it. And that's when she finally she looks up at him. Just a short, uncomfortable glance that doesn't dare to linger. "So, how are you feeling today?"

She asks it, with a superior tone that tells him that she isn't all that worried.

"Peachy, just peachy pie," he mutters. The excruciating headache making itself known every time he shifts ever so slightly, his stomach threatening to turn inside out. "How 'bout you? Sleep well in _my _bed? For the little time you were in it?"

She looks defiant – her mouth set in a rebellious line. As if she's waiting for him to challenge her. Waiting for a chance to lash out.

"**_Selamat pagi!_**" A forceful voice booms across the lawn behind them. And it's so unexpected, Kate's grip slips and the mug, half full with coffee shatters against the stone tile of the terrace. The dark brown liquid splattering on her bare feet.

They spin around, surprised to see a short, dumpy little man, the owner of this powerful voice. He's dressed in an ill-fitting synthetic uniform of sorts, looking more like a janitor than anything else. But a fleeting sideway look at Kate tells him that she's terrified. _This is the long arm of the law._ _Native style._ Can't be anything else to cause her colour to drain like that.

He doesn't even think about it, as soon as he sees the man approaching, stalking across the yard, determined and bullish as if he's about to handcuff them both, he moves next to her, pulls his arm around her waist and tugs her close to him.

"Howdy!" he hollers back, waving in a neighbourly way while tacking on a wide fake grin that makes his head feel like it's about to implode.

He can feel the rigidity in her back but to his relief she snuggles in next to him too, embracing him with her own arm, hand just above his hip, hanging on with her thumb in his belt.

"Kalian ngapain disini? Rumah ini disewa?" the little man bellows, sounding mighty pissed. The eyes below the shiny brim of the brown hat with it's large brass emblem tells Sawyer that this is not someone to take lightly. He is used to respect, obviously a man that has a certain power, _a man to fear_.

"Speak English? My Indonesian is a bit rusty, I'm afraid, " he calls back jovially, scratching his messy bedhead with his free hand. Playing the dumb tourist, hoping to soften up the flint-hard stance of the man.

"Bapak stay here?" His English is funny and clipped but its clear that he means business. He is near now, just outside the little terrace. Standing there with his stubby legs wide apart, his belly straining against the belt. Sawyer can feel Kate's pulse against the arm around her. She says nothing, just stands there pale and speechless.

If he were a cop himself, he'd drag her ass right to jail no questions asked, just for looking so damn guilty. _Come on baby, snap out of it! Help out!_

"Yeah sure! We're renting this place, honeymooning, me an' the little Missus'," he grins giving her a little peck on the cheek.

At this, the man takes his pointed hat off, wipes his forehead with the brown nylon shirtsleeve and finally smiles back.

"Aha! Wife ya? New wife yes?!" The transformation is so startling that Sawyer first thinks he's making fun of them, but as the seconds tick away it becomes clear that the man is genuinely thrilled. Literally beaming with all four cylinders at them.

"Yeah, brand new wife - ain't you _just_ honey," he says, squeezing her, hoping to bring her into the game. It doesn't really look believable with him there gushing over her - and her; like a scared rabbit just gawking stupidly at their guest.

"Good, bagus untuk honeymoon!" The man expands his arm royally, indicating the view over the ledge, the sea beyond. Round bronze coloured cheeks showing off dimples in impossibly many places, the smile bringing out a few levels of double chins.

"Yes it's beautiful. A beautiful place… " she suddenly exclaims, finally cottoning on to the fact that he wouldn't have bothered with this kind of pleasant small talk if he were there to arrest them. They'd be lying face down, getting tile imprints on their foreheads having their Miranda rights read backwards to them in Indonesian or something. That man would certainly not have been twittering on about the beauty of the scenery.

"Saya Pak Made, kepala polisi disini. Kalau ada masalah…you go there.." he says and they have no clue what he's on about, perhaps telling them that he's a policeman. He points down the little muddy road he'd arrived upon. "There, my kampung."

"Great!" Kate says in a robotic Stepford wife manner that has him cringing. She is really lousy at this. How she's managed to evade the law for so long, he'll never understand.

The rotund little cop puts his hat back on again and salutes them jokingly, winking at Sawyer. He looks like a little jolly hamster, spare the intelligent eyes under the SS-style hat.

"Wife cantik, _beautiful_. Make lot of baby, ya - yes!?. Happy honeymoon, many baby!" he says leering openly at Kate now.

"You got it buddy, that's _all_ we do, make babies. All day long… Ain't that so Sugar?" he says leaning his cheek against her hair like he imagines a genuine hubby might have done, wanting to laugh at the absurdity of it, her stiff smile beside him.

He hooks his thumb through one of her belt loops, thinking that this is how they ought to be. _Him and her._ How she'd ever have managed on her own is beyond him. She's obviously an abysmal liar and terrible under stress.

"Selamat nikmati ya, enjoy yes!" he chips and Sawyer damn well hopes it means _good day to ya'all_ because he can't keep it together much longer.

They stand there and watch in incredulous relief as the policeman puts distance between himself and the terrace, turning around one last time, still grinning, to give them a last little wave. He walks away down the palm tree lined dirt road towards the village, a funny little swagger to his gait.

When he's finally out of sight, she grips his shirt between both of her fists and draws herself in to rest her forehead against his shoulder, letting out a lungful of air. Almost a moan, and he'd have loved that sound under other circumstances. He lifts a hand to her neck, holding her there, gently against him, letting his thumb caress the little bare stretch of skin. At first he thinks she will cry, but then again, she isn't one to spill tears unnecessarily.

"Oh, hell" she breathes into his shirt, her voice lacklustre and monotone, the heat of her breath discernible though the fabric. "God, that was horrible…. I had sort of forgotten… I'm so busy worrying about Aaron, Claire and this… _you_… I thought he'd come to… you know. I'd forgotten that I am,… That they can still catch me. How could I be so stupid?! I've been so careless, moving about as if nothing!"

She sounds manic, like she's just talking to herself. He doesn't know how to answer her. Frankly doesn't know what to say because that's the plain truth. Nothing they can do about it. This is how her life will always be. She'll always be looking over her shoulder. Nothing that he can do about it.

"It's alright, he's gone now."

He draws his arms around her taut back; hands spread across her shoulder blades and hugs her tightly. Wants to make her feel safe, wants to make himself feel less like a pointless, useless jerk. He holds her softly, delighting in the way she feels against him, the fact that she is leaning on him.

"Interpol, anyone, someone, they must have spread the information about me all across the world… It doesn't matter where I am. I'm such an idiot…how do you forget something like that?!"

"It's alright Kate, t'was was nothing,.. just a nosy village cop. What are the chances some yahoo like that keeps up with Interpol and all that jazz? Just a lazy village cop."

"Still, I thought I had gone far enough, gotten away from it all. But it'll never go away… never."

Something about the self-pitying, defeatist attitude riles him immensely. He wants her to stand up, wants to see the fighter in her, some _goddamn_ bravado. She is strong, he knows she is. Otherwise she wouldn't have made it this far already. And the frustration of his feelings for her just gets to him.

"Yeah, well tough luck Sweet pea! Put on a _pair_ and deal with it!" he snarls against the top of her head.

Like an alarm has gone off, she suddenly strains against him like a stubborn obstinate goat that just _has to_ buck, has to resist, just for the damn sake of it. Because it's in her nature, sharp little horns and lethal hoofs scraping against him.

"What!? I've been doing nothing but _dealing_ with it… What do you know anyway?! You know nothing about this, about me…"

Out comes the little angry girl, the one that shoots forward like a heat-seeking missile, doesn't care what she hits as long as she hits someone, something. He is forced to give up on the embrace because it's like trying to hold on to a little pissed-off hedgehog, but he clasps his hands around her upper arms before she can get away. His head is spinning and his stomach is making flip-flops for the nausea.

"Oh, yeah that's right, just take it out on me. _What now hon'?!_ You gonna' punch me now? Head butt maybe? 'Cause that's the only way I've ever seen ya' deal with anything darling!"

"I was doing just fine, before _**you**_ showed up!" She shakes his hands off her arms and surprisingly doesn't run away, just sidetracks. Turns so that they end up standing almost side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder.

He pats his jeans down, hoping to find a stray cigarette. He really needs to smoke if he's not going to hurl soon. A hangover with a serving of cop and a sprinkle of a one-to-one talk with a reclusive emotional retard; not the ultimate combination.

"Fine my ass! Shit girl – I've never seen a more amateurish fugitive, the way you stalk around the neighbourhood, flaunting you're pretty face as if you're some goddamn movie star. You have done absolutely _nothing _to change your appearance since you got here. I mean, you _looking_ to make sure that those wanted posters stay relevant?! Just suck it up and live with it Sweets, 'cause the way I see it, you don't have much choice."

He fumbles on, searches the breast pocket of his shirt and his back pocket and finally finds a lone cigarette, bent and almost broken just below the filter, but hell, beggars can't be choosers. He lights it, sucks in deeply and his pitiful world improves slightly. Balances it carefully between his fingers so that it won't break off completely.

" I _know_ that," she says in a huff and the denial cracks him up. She isn't dealing with it at all, just sticking her head in the sand and hoping it will all go away. Shit, it's too damn early for this crap and he can't deal with it right now. Her never 'dealing'. He goes with the cheap cop-out route instead. He prods her gently with his elbow.

"Alrightey then... Now you heard the man, let's _you_ and _me_ go make some goddamn babies! It is our honeymoon after all - ain't that right Sugar?…"

"Yeah, 'cause _**that's**_ the answer to all my problems," she mutters with just a faintest trace of a smile and steps gingerly away from him, careful not to step on the chards of her broken coffee mug.

"Don't worry 'bout that cup Miss Scarlett, the _house__maid_ will get it..." he calls behind her.

* * *

They spend the morning taking turns with the surfboards on the beach. It's easy and relaxed and she acts as if nothing has happened, as if the policeman's surprise visit this morning was nothing, as if they hadn't had that little talk. He knows she's good at this, pretending, pushing stuff away. He doesn't know if it's a good thing to be able to live in complete denial, but he guesses it can be useful at times. Maybe in her case it's more of a survival mechanism than anything else.

He stays on the beach. Doesn't want to get saltwater in that scratch from yesterday's coral reef run-in. He watches her out there. Her lean muscular body, in full command of the board already, dressed in that red t-shirt and a pair of black men's shorts. She just has that agility, that natural adaptability. The sight of her as she strides out of the water, like a Bond-girl. Strong, dripping wet and sheer happiness visible in every little muscle of her freckled face. Teeth large and white against her soft tan. _He sees the little girl in her._

That little happy carefree girl that she probably never had a chance to be.

She throws the board in the sand and snitches a towel from him, wiping away the water from her face. As her eyes meet his, they change, the smile melts away faster than he can say 'freeze'. The delighted expression leaves instantly and the resentment comes right back in. Inexplicably. She turns her back on him. Wraps a red, floral patterned sarong around her hips, ties it there and bends to pull down the dripping wet surfer shorts underneath, letting them drop in the sand too.

'_Suit yourself,'_ he thinks. If she wants to play it like that. Last night she had lied down next to him. _**She**_ had come to him. It was her ass that had pushed against him as she slept.

_But _**_he's_**_ the stupid fool who smelled her damn pillow this morning._

Claire, sitting on a blanket there in the sand. Miles is bouncing Aaron on his lap like the great daddy-o' he's probably hoping to be. It looks awkward and forced but it still is enough to makes him want to smile, if nothing then due to the fact that it seems so totally out of character for Miles..

"Hey, I was really hoping to go to that hotel,…maybe I can check my emails over there. They might have a business centre…" Claire says pushing her bare toes through the sand.

"Sure, it's okay. I'll take Aaron." Kate looks preposterously pleased at the possibility.

"I'll drive you.." Miles volunteer. Already standing up with Aaron on his arm. "Come on Beautiful, let's go and we can grab some lunch as well..."

Sawyer puts a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back roughly.

"Buddy, ever rode a bike before?"

"Nah, but how hard could it be?"

"Yeah, right. You're **_not _**driving her – don't want that poor little sod motherless, do we? It's ok Claire, I'll take you."

He surprises himself, but honestly, the hangover is letting up a bit and he's getting a bit of cabin fever here all day with Kate and her cold-shouldering him all day long. Goddammit, _she'd_ jumped _him_. Literally jumped him. And she'd joined him in bed last night. It had seemed okay, like they'd passed some kind of obstacle. Still they're back to this and yet again he ends up looking like the bad guy.

* * *

He hauls the bulky old-fashioned surf board up from the sand where she'd dumped it, steadies it on his left shoulder and sets off up towards the house.

He's just turned the key on the little ramshackle shed when he feels a hand on his right shoulder. It's Kate._ So now, it's alright to sneak up on **him**?_ Now when she feels like it. He clenches his jaw and unloads the board on the floor inside. He's had about enough of her crap. The constant push and pull.

The shed is in semi-dark, his eyes finding it hard to adjust after the blinding sunlight outside. It smells of mildew and dampness and is almost empty spare a wooden workbench and a turquoise Vespa. _Who the hell brings an old vintage Vespa to Bali?_

She is right behind him and for some reason it's infuriating. Her, just standing there, not saying anything. Waiting silently.

"Did ya want something?" he sneers at her as he stands up to wipe his hands on his shorts, looking at her standing there. Shit. It always gets to him.

"I… just wanted to ask …" She fiddles around with her hair, twirling a strand of it around her finger and it is irksome as hell.

"Just spit it out already! Gotta' go - gonna drive Claire, remember? So you can play 'mommy dearest' for a little while." He has no patience with her bullshit now. The headache from this morning still burning in a spot just behind the eyes, making him irritable and grumpy.

"Please, don't…"

"Aw come on Kate, just get on with it! "

She takes a step closer and suddenly, she's invading his personal space, too close, to near for him to remain indifferent. She lifts her hand up swiftly, lets her fingers trace his collarbone. And he gets it. Gets what this is. She's trying to suck up, trying to cajole him.

"Don't say anything else to Claire okay… It's bad enough as it is. I,..I don't know, I don't think she trusts me anymore…"

"Well, between you and me, **_should_** she?"

"Just don't do your normal thing. No more lies and talk about husbands and sex and fabricated background stories… Please. That's the only thing I'm asking."

"Alright. Won't tell her any more lies about us. Anything else I can do for you Ma'm? Since we're at it? You want me to make you some tea, fold your linen and iron you socks too?"

"Wasn't planning on asking but since you're offering…" He wants to yelp when her fingertips drift down to the centre of his chest, to the spot just below the lower ribs. _God, not this again._ He can't do this. His fingers wrap around hers and he tosses her hand away.

"You know what Kate; back off alright! This, the blowing hot and cold is getting fucking old."

She pulls her own hand back to her chest and just remain standing there with the red sarong tied on her hip and her feet on the ground in green flip flops. Looking like he's kicked her squarely in the stomach. He's resolve dwindles at the sight of her. _How can he tell her to piss off when she looks like that?_

_Oh, fuck it. _He's only a man. He can't be expected to be some kind of moral compass, not now, not with her. He reaches forward, brings her fingers back onto his chest. Hooks his arms around her and twirls her around at the same time, lifting her up on the dusty old workbench behind them. It's hardly more than a ledge and she leans on it precariously but he doesn't care, doesn't give shit if the whole place falls apart. All that matters is her face in front of him, the slight sunburn across her nose and cheekbones, lips burned dry in the sun. His hands that slide up the sides of her ribcage under her t-shirt, he feels it lifting sharply as he fills his hands with her breasts._ Oh mercy._ It's just boobs for Christ's sake but it's her. Here with him.

_It's her._

And she is the one who kisses him first. She grabs him by the ears in a funny, almost comical eagerness. A kiss that makes him knock his knee against a wooden crate beneath the bench.

"Sonofabitch!" he bursts out but the rest he cusses under his breath, under her kiss and it's as much about the sore knee as it is about her. Him regressing into a babbling idiot in her nearness. Her lips that taste like coconut and palm sugar. So sweet it hurts. The embarrassingly loud drumming of his heart. The urge that yanks him along, that makes him act on autopilot. He reaches his hands under the folds of that sarong, not bothering untying it. _Wants this. Just wants her_. Lets his palms glide up the length of her legs, any hesitation kicked to the curb by the way her skin feels, warm and clammy. He finds the wetness of her underwear, imagines the saltiness of the ocean and he wrenches them down. Anything but gently._ Just has to. Has to now._ Throws them on the floor, by his feet. A frenzied urgency brought on by her capriciousness, by her lips against his. She doesn't help him, but she doesn't fight him either and the way her soft mouth slides across his, the desire in her breath, he knows that she won't.

_Wants him. At least now._

The complete uninhibitedness of the way she kisses, the very same way that she eats. _Greedy sensuality_. He conks his nose against her and it hurts like a bitch, but he doesn't care. All he cares about is that soft, warm junction. _It's been so long, so long,_ he thinks as he hitches the sarong up, bunching it up above her thighs, her hips. She doesn't protest, just watches him, clear green eyes that makes his throat tighten._ You're mine,_ he thinks but he doesn't dare say it. She clenches her legs shut tight but doesn't resist when he leans back to look at her and wedges them apart with his hands. Just looks at him, as if she'd been waiting for this all along. Her nostrils that flare, just a hint as she bites that plump bottom lip. And the little ridge below her nose stretches in a way that he has always loved. Her whole face, the expression of indecisiveness, of hesitation and he might have stopped there if it weren't for that look in her eyes. That looks that says; _want you, want you._ The hopeless sweetness of her, half woman, half wild unaffected creature.

And the way she feels down there, against his fingers, the pliability of her. _He's missed this._ He'd do anything for this. How she lets out a little series of gasps, one after another as he lets his fingers take charge, _this_, it couldn't be any other way. This is how they were supposed to be. Her fingers in his hair as he leans down there, between her legs, his cheek brushing by the softness of her inner thigh. Loves to see her like this. The affirmation that her body gives to him, what she could never say herself. And he knows that she'd like to throw herself backwards, lie down in abandon, but the narrow space on the workbench doesn't allow for it. The shelves at the back of her prevent her from changing position and he finds it strangely erotic that she is forced to remain upright, has no choice but to look at him as he bends down, lips and tongue merging at the delicate core of her.

_Salty caramel butter. Sea and sun and god, he's missed her. Missed this._

He glances up at her through his own hair. Wants to see if she's looking at him. Wants to know that it's _**him**_ she is thinking of as he brings her on, slowly and determinedly.

_She is._

Her eyes, half shut, like a drunken person's, but by all means; _watching him_. As if she's wondering how she got here. _How she let him do this?_ But the physical unequivocally gains on the logical and he can hear her getting closer now, how she lets out a barely audible little sound. Her fingers desert his hair to steady herself. Her hips that lift ever so little from the workbench as she holds her weight up by stiff, tense arms. The taut tension in her thighs as he feels the beginning of telltale contractions, a shiver so faint and modest that he might have missed it had he not been so acutely attuned to her. And then, her exhaling as if she's letting go of everything and he sees how she relaxes the muscles, leaning back against the shelves with both her legs and her lips indulgently parted and her eyes shut tightly. The silly pride he feels at the thought that this is _his_ doing. He did this to her.

Though she is a shabby, incomplete version of a woman – these meagre pickings are all he wants right now. Wants her. _Just wants her._

He gets up, standing between her knees , brings himself up to her face just to brush her lips with his. Wants a connection so bad, he'd do anything right now. _Anything_. It's too much. She's too little, too scanty. He needs her to give him more. But she is curiously passive now. He knows her so well. Soon comes the shame and with that her denial, her back-tracking. Claiming it isn't important, that this is not what she wants. It can never be easy with her. And the nerves make him stumble back, fall back to what's familiar, to cover it all up. To coat his vulnerability with something else.

"So how 'bout that? Better than Doc then... now that you're in position to compare, that is?" he leers against her lips. Her eyelids flip open wide. That hunted look in them. Like she can't quite believe what she's just heard. He doesn't even know why he said it. _But he needs more from her_.

"_Tst_," she retorts feebly and he can't believe how awkward she looks. Awkward and wonderful, the red flush of life to her cheeks, her hair in a disarray, the curls falling across her face like on a prehistoric cave woman. That wildness in her eyes glazed over by shy contentment.

He watches smugly as she pulls down the hem of her sarong, struggling with it because he's there, still standing between her knees. Enjoying a last glimpse of what's underneath as he bends down to pick up her underwear from the floor. He can't help smirking at her as he hands them to her. She tears them from his fingers and squeezes the scrap of fabric into a little ball in her hand. She rakes her hair down with her fingers into some semblance of tidiness and all he wants to do is mess it up again. _Wants more._ More than those shy little moans and that scarcely noticeable climax of hers.

He takes hold of her by the waist, surprised as always by the lightness of her. With a feeling of regret he lifts her off the bench. As soon as she's back on her own two feet, slightly shaky by the look of it, wiping her forehead with her palm, she makes to pass him. Immediately, he finds himself wedging his bulk in front of the open door, preventing her escape. He crosses his arms over his chest, aware that he must look like a grumpy version of Mr. Clean.

"I thought you were in a hurry…" she says crisply, scrutinizing him under knitted brows. How someone can be so pissed at a guy for making her come is beyond him.

"So are you obviously… now that you've gotten what you came for. My guess is that it was a long time coming…"

At that her eyes wavers and her hand shoots up to her mouth. He can hardly believe it when she runs her own thumb across her bottom lip and her teeth bite down into the nail. The picture of nervous uncertainty. And he hates it. She shouldn't be this conflicted about it. _Him_. She ought to know by now.

"I didn't come for _that_," she says and blushes so deeply he has to laugh at her, letting out a mocking chuckle that sounds mean even to him.

"If ya' say so... And I didn't just go down on you. All in my imagination, that so Sweets?"

"Yeah, just forget about it Sawyer. Never happened." She fixes him with her gaze and fuck, the way she says it, and he can almost believe it. That it didn't just happen, because here she is. All collected and back to her normal combative stance.

"Ah, yeah, so I get it. Just like the bathroom, you all over me. That didn't happen either right? And you didn't crawl into bed with me last night? That it?"

"Yep. You got it buddy. Now, let me go!" She says, that sassy little cock of her head.

"Not just yet. We're not done yet you and me - and ya' wanna' know another thing?..."

"No not really…" she sulks and he's amazed that she hasn't beaten him off yet, hasn't forced her way past him yet. That'd definitely be the default post coital behaviour for her. And he can't look at her for this part. He pins his eyes on the little indentation at the base of her throat and tries to steady his voice. _Here goes nothing..._

"You've got to give in baby…"

"Really? _You're_ suggesting I turn myself in? Really Sawyer - what a novel idea. Why don't **_you_ **turn yourself in?!"

"Christ girl, you're slow witted... that orgasm must'ave just sucked away all of your brains… No I meant…" he starts out and hears the agitation rising in his whole intonation so he gathers himself back in and lowers his voice. Eyes shifting up to the magnetism of her face, trying to force her to hold his gaze for more than a second. "Give in to **_this_** – you – and – me."

It comes out huskily, more hoarsely than the cool uneven effect he'd been after.

"Wha… what?" she stammers looking like an imbecile or like he is speaking a foreign language. Her lips like a little stupid 'o', playing dumb, biting into that thumbnail like she is trying to extract it completely.

"You know damn well what I mean. It's simple darling. Either you let me in, or… I leave. I can't do this much longer… tell you the truth, patience wearing a little thin."

"So what is this? An ultimatum? A threat? How original Sawyer! - I already told you; _I don't … _"

He cuts her off because he can't stand hearing that crap again. Bends forward, his nose almost touching hers, eyes locked. They are at a stand still. He can already feel it. This is going nowhere but he pushes on because he's already here and hell it can't get worse than it already is. At the centre of it all, always that foolish glimmer of a hope, that she will finally give into him. Let him in.

"Yeah, yeah, so you did, so you did. See, here's the thing;… I don't believe that."

"You don't?"

_Argh. _

She sounds surprised, like she's a dull five year old and shit, it's exasperating beyond the tolerable. More than anything, he'd like to slap her right now. Slap the denial and the stupidity out of her, and if he were the type to hit women, he would have. Instead he kisses her, deprived and needy as he is. Just, forces his tongue in between her lips and steadies her face with both his hands, thumbs moving along her jaw-line, hearing how she practically yelps in surprise. He lets go as suddenly as he'd clasped her to him, making her falter. She takes an unsteady step backwards, still that stupid expression on her face. He places his hands on the doorframe, effectively blocking any escape route, because he can see it coming now. This is when she usually would make a dash for it. And he is on a roll now, the kiss has done nothing to calm him down, quite the opposite, because it's all there, he knows it and he wants her to say it.

"Nah, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong… Here's what I think darling; I reckon you are just a frightened little bunny, you are scared and this is your way to deal, by not dealing at all – the way you always do. That's why offing your daddy was such an anomaly in my opinion, see, cause that's probably the only time in your life when you actually faced something and did something about it."

"Yeah, sounds like you've got me all figured out. So what Sawyer!? You want this?! Haven't you understood anything yet? – This!.." she is wheezing now, pointing a terse finger on the spot just where her t-shirt stretches between the little cupolas of her breasts, making a sharp indent in the red fabric.

Her voice so unexpectedly vehement, it takes him aback. He had wanted to rile her, to cause a reaction but hadn't expected this. The poison welling out. The absolute hatred in her eyes. A self-hatred so powerful, he doesn't know what to do with it.

" This here, _**me,**_ you think you want _**me**_!? This is nothing, _nothing_, I'm nothing…and you just think you want _this_. You wouldn't if you knew... There is _fuck all_ for you to get here, just pure shit."

And it freaks him out when she does that. The angrier she gets, the lower her voice goes. She doesn't shout, doesn't scream, she hisses like a goddamn viper. Fangs gleaming in the dull light inside the shed. Can't do anything but whisper back, imitating her wheezing tirade, leans forward and almost spits the words out in her ear.

"But that's the _shit_ that I want. Simple as that. I want it, every measly morsel of it _**– I – want - it.**"_

She _is_ scared. He gets that. But that she could be so diffident with him, just kills him. He backs off from her, lets his arms fall to his sides, she's free to go. He can't do this.

"You won't like it… it's not what you want…" She falters now, he can see it and somehow, even though she is no closer to him than she was a second ago, it feels like she has just taken a great big step forward and unbuttoned the top button. Like she's letting down her guard ever so little, just a millimetre.

"Let me be the judge of that, just make up your own fucking mind and – let – me – in!"

He wishes there was a way he could make her understand that this ugly side of hers, the one that she is so afraid to show, to open up, is what finally did it for him_, way back then_. He knows it's sick as hell, but that was what had him sold. It was what made him fall like a goddamn log for her. The inexplicable thrill of finding out that she'd killed that son of a bitch, blew him to hell's end, eliminated some asshole that no doubt must have hurt her beyond repair.

Paradoxically, the part that gives him the greatest hope for her, is that she doesn't seem to feel guilty about it. He knows this reasoning is as fucked-up as it gets but he can't see it as anything else than a big blazing sign that there is hope for her. She must have wanted to live, not just survive. The way he figures it; it hadn't been about revenge or even to protect herself. It seems fucking life affirming in his twisted mind. Killing a part of her that she couldn't live with.

He wishes he could tell her all of this. But he feels an exhaustion coming over him, so strong, he just wants to lie down on the floor and curl up in a ball. She just looks at him, pupils large and black in her eyes. Distant and cold as if she hadn't just had his head between her thighs, like minutes ago. As if they hadn't just kissed. He has to steel himself. _He's too open, too raw with her._

"James... Last night, what you said,… do you, do you… remember it at all?"

"Which part, I said a lot of things last night. Care to enlighten me as to which part you would like to discuss in particular sweetheart?"

"You said, you could, you know…"

"This 'bout the condom joke Freckles…? To rude? Not to your liking?... Or is it the one when I said I think I could make you happy 'cause if it is,… T'was just the liqueur speaking. You know as well as me that I couldn't make a damn flea happy, never mind _**you**_. So forget all about it. Don't bother letting anyone in either…I mean, god forbid someone should see how _fucked-up_ you are inside, 'cause no one could ever guess from just looking at you!"

Hopes that the derisive sarcasm hits home. _Not that he cares, 'cause he doesn't,_ he tells himself. He watches as she makes her way around him and struts out of the shed, head held high and the outline of her against the sharp sunlight. He feels lost. Completely and utterly lost. The hopelessness of it all. And what a big fucking idiot he is for thinking that he could bridge the gap, reach her somehow.

_Fuck this_, he thinks as he kicks the rickety door to the shed shut, the whole construction shaking as he does. _This is as far as he goes for her._

* * *

_Hope you liked it in spite of all the angst and Kate's grating behaviour. And the insane, barbaric length. _

_Pondering which is the worse crime, obnoxiously long chapters or many, many short chapters? - What do you think?_


	18. Another storm

_A/N Thanks again for the reviews: Jessi, Yema, Torchwood, Gabism (on Jack: hmm…yeah maybe just to screw it up a little bit more :- ) , Heidi, Simsi, litme, Halliheart, Gabardine, Trapped, Delamik, rain, skunji and TSOL . You are the best!!! And sorry if it took a while to get this chapter out. Just started a new job this week and really, I shouldn't be writing at all, but it's so addictive._

_Anyway, I hope you enjoy the mess that follows..._

_Rated: M for language and them__e._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

* * *

**Another storm**

* * *

He hasn't driven a bike for ages, and never, ever an old crappy Vespa like this. It seems misplaced here on this lush jungle road. He ought to be gliding down a cobble-stoned street in Rome or something, with Sophia Loren wrapped around him. Instead he has a nervous Claire clasping him desperately around his waist as he carefully manoeuvres the treacherous curves of the little muddy road down the hill. He's going as fast as he dares to, considering that giving the Vespa a thorough rattle would probably make the old thing disintegrate. _Still, it beats walking_.

There is only one helmet and he has forced Claire to wear it, using the argument that she is a 'momma' and he ain't nothing of the sort so he's free to feel the balmy wind in his hair and against his skin.

He tries to concentrate on his driving and avoid thinking of _her_. But something about the way the silky air feels against his face reminds him of her hands in his hair, nails accidentally rasping the sensitive skin on his neck.

_Damn her. _

The frustration makes him wild and irrational. The emotions he senses _must _be there, somewhere underneath all of her high-flying bullshit.

The way she continues to deny it It's corroding the negligibly little patience he's got. His own cruel words back in the shed. He knows he should hold back, should refrain from stooping down that low, but a part of him, the primitive, uncouth man in him, can't help it. It seems to go hand in hand with the passion.

And a reaction from her, _any reaction at all_, is better than nothing.

The fact that she can live this little quaint domestic life with Claire and Aaron, _for their sake_ – it's drives him bat crazy. That in spite of this, it is such a goddamn stretch for her to imagine finding some sort of peace by _his _side. That she thinks so little of him.

_There is a lump in his throat. _

This absurd longing for her that had assailed him as soon as they'd rounded the first bend on that dirt road away from the house. _Away from her._ He'd thought it would do him good to get the hell out of her way for a while. But _god_, he can do _nothing_ but think of her. He aches for her in the most banal sense of the word.

_Wonders what the heck she wants from him. If anything._

Back then, a million years ago when they were still on the island, this thing between them, it had started out as equal measures of lust and desperation. The night at the cages, when she'd come to him and he had foolishly thought that it meant something. That it was her - finally making a choice. And later, with Juliet's arrival to the beach camp, with Juliet and Jack getting close, it had been her jealousy, her insecurity fueling her on. Not really about him. Her, barging into his tent like a heat-seeking missile, launching herself onto him. Her hurried fingers struggling with his clothes. More about her own inner demons than about him.

_But this right here? The way she'd kissed him._

It's so aggravating. Because he can sense it, feels it rippling right below the surface. Something real, something powerful and genuine. Something that has nothing to do with jealousy, Juliet, Jack or anything else. – Something that is just about _him_.

He feels like he's missing something. As if there is a password, some trick he needs to know for her to let him through, for her to give him access. _What the hell does she want from him ?_ For him to say it first? Some stereotypical, hackneyed declaration of love? But coming from him, he isn't sure it could ever mean anything. He has worn those words out, over-used them - soiled them. Trite and stale after years of lying, cheapened by the the uncountable times he's used them to butter up and screw over all of those women.

And he doesn't think there is a suitable version to describe what he feels for her. It's too much, too complicated - too confusing.

Out here in the stark sunlight, it really does seem like none of it truly happened. That it wasn't really him, not really her, not them. The dank smell of mould and sea and moisture of the old shed. The frenzied _having-to-have_. The heated lack of impulse control in the dimness of that dilapidated shack. _Damn. _He'd almost managed to forget the compulsion of that other smell; that disturbingly stirring fragrance of hers. And what's more, he'd almost forgotten that taste of hers. That addictive feeling of having been let in on a rare secret.

It isn't the physical part that gets him down. He believes he could have that, he could just stay here, follow her around and they could do their little silly dance of denial and desire and simply _**not**_ acknowledge the elephant in the room. _They could do that_. He'd have to wait around, be patient and just take the sex and run with it. He could do that, but then again. _He doesn't want to._ It's a terrifying realization metamorphosing from the emotional turmoil of the last few days. All he knows is that; _he wants her_, all of her.

Wants so desperately for it to mean something, to find a foothold, something to cling to.

Wants the fighting, the electricity and the inevitable chaos of them together. Wants the grappling with her, teeth and nails, until someone hurts the other, the tenderness after the storm. Wants the falling asleep with her hair across his chest like a chestnut brown fan. Wants the waking up together, in that simple, uncomplicated way they never were. The hauling her on top of him, still heavy-eyed, warm and sloth-like, a heavy human blanket. Wants her to be that girl that has no fears, that doesn't have a meltdown every time he gets too close.

He wants wants wants… He wants so much. Wants her to relinquish herself to him. He nurtures a harebrained archaic, almost primal yearning to both possess her and protect her.

_Wants what fulfils both dick and heart._

And it's all like the stuff of some fucking romance novel. He knows she's nothing of the sort. They'd probably last for a day or two, no more.

He feels inadequate and unequipped to deal with it all, the frustration making him want to claw his own eyes out. He hadn't been prepared for this when he'd come out here a few weeks ago. Hadn't thought it through.

_What she does to him._

_Hell_, he'd be the first to admit it; he's too weak, to frail with her. He has no principles whatsoever, at least none that he can hang on to. Throw him together with her in any random, improbable situation and that pulsating physical drive, that craving for her will surely materialize. It will suck up all reason, shove away all the glaring contradictions and complications. It will rudely elbow its way forward with no consideration for the consequences.

But in the backwater of any physical contact, any encounter with her, he's always left feeling short-changed. The unfulfilment of being with her, of being the one that cares the most. Of feeling for her – like he does.

_Loves her._

The words. Just thinking them, has him freaking out. He takes the curve a tad too tightly and the Vespa veers off precariously near the edge. He feels Claire's grip harden around his waist. He tries to shake the stubborn rambling thoughts rushing through his brain like a stampede of ill-mannered zebras.

Impossible to ignore.

_Loves her._

No. No.

He isn't an idiot and there is always that little smidgen of self-doubt. That it's more about the chase than anything else – about the competition. That it's all about the fact that she's unreachable, unobtainable. That the doc had wanted her and _he_ was the one who _got_ her, snatched her away, right under his nose like that. Only, he'd never really 'gotten' her - it hadn't been at his initiative. She had taken _him - when it suited her_. She had never belonged to him._ He knows that. _

Hell, he's been hankering after her since the first time he saw her. _No_ - not the first time maybe, she was just a pretty girl then, just anyone. But since that excursion when they had a run-in with a goddamn polar bear - everything had changed.

------

"_I know your type!"_

"_I'm not so sure." That cynical, clear-eyed look about her. _

"_Yeah. I've been with girls like you." He'd done his usual thing, the thing that usually did the trick. But not with her. She wasn't impressed, not intimidated, just stated the plain facts. _

"_No girl's exactly like me."_

------

No, he's never been with a girl exactly like her. She is just a hell of a mess. And he knows it could never last. They would surely screw it up, hurt one other beyond repair, leave each other infinitely worse for wear. _Still._

_Hell, he wants her. _Wants all of that.

The Vespa swerves again.

"You're alright back there?" he shouts backwards at Claire, turning his head to avoid catching insects with his open mouth.

"Yeah, I'm okay… Hey, so you and Kate… you getting back together?" she asks next and it comes so out of the blue that the bike takes another wobble. _What is she? A fucking mind-reader?_

"No, what gave you that idea?" He knows he sounds pissy as hell, but he can't help it.

"You just seem to hit it off…" She leans forward, her mouth near his ear so that she doesn't have to shout. The front of her helmet pressing into his head.

"Yeah you think so?! – We seem close to you? Like we're loving it up?!" he ejects with a toxic tone that isn't really aimed at Claire.

"Sorry I asked. I didn't mean to pry," she answers, with a misplaced defensiveness.

And he feels bad for her. Not her fault that they are all screwed up. She isn't to blame for him going clinically insane with his own increasingly irrational thoughts stuck swirling around in his head.

Claire's blond hair that flaps around across his own shoulder. And he aches. Almost aches for the strands to be darker. That chocolate rich brown of hers. For the arms around his waist, the knees pressing on both sides of his thighs to be _hers_.

He knows, they can never find that relaxed, unforced equilibrium he had with Juliet. She'll always be hiding, running, moving – that goes without saying. She will always be skittish and illogical, fire and ice - never tranquillity. He can't say he doesn't wish she were different, because he does. He wishes she were easy and uncomplicated – and most of all he wishes she were undamaged.

_Whole. _

But she isn't. As simple as that, and there isn't one _damn _thing he can do about it except just take that broken mess that she is and make do. _Try to live with it._ And he would, given half a chance, he'd take it and run like a maniac with it. If only she'd let him.

_If only she'd give him a fucking chance._

* * *

They pass by the little village Danan told them about. The rough uneven cement walls shielding the view in to the little Balinese compounds. Narrow painted doors set in elaborate arches of stone carvings.

An uncharacteristic curiosity gnaws at him as he passes them.

He wonders who lives there and how the hell they make it through the day in one piece. It seems an impossible feat to him. Maybe they are not as far gone as he is? Maybe they love someone who isn't a total fuck-up? Or perhaps they just have better things to worry about.

Kids stop and wave at them as they pass, some run along with the Vespa, like straggles of little frolicking puppies. They overtake an old woman with an enormous basket filled with fruits and vegetables on the top of her silvery head. Thin wiry body, she must have worked hard her whole life. He bets she doesn't waste her goddamn time on neurotically obsessing about some person who doesn't love her back. Can't love enough.

When they finally reach the hotel, forty minutes have passed. Danan wasn't kidding when he'd said remote. He makes his way to the hotel bar. It's set by a fancy infinite type of pool that seems to run into the empty space, the horizon merging with its turquoise water and the ocean visible beyond.

Claire puts down her little purse on a chair next to him as he orders a large local beer.

She looks at him casually and then, _what comes next makes his stomach turn_.

"James, I know you don't know me yet, but I have to ask you something…" she says, standing there stiffly holding on to the back of the chair next to him. The long blonde hair flowing over her shoulders.

"Sure, just shoot." he says and forces a smile. He can feel how fake and put on it must look.

The lithe little waitress with her batik skirt and white blouse comes back and gently places the glass in front of him. He grabs it, as if he's completely dehydrated and takes a gulp, too big. The young blonde there next to him, those blue eyes gravely on him. There is nowhere to run.

"Who is she? - Really?"

And there it is. _The question that she should have asked a hell of a long time ago._

"Just a girl Claire. She's just goddamn girl." He doesn't want to lie to her. Well, to be completely honest, he does and ordinarily he would. He lies easily. But that back in the shed, before he'd had her wedged up on the workbench. She'd asked him not to make up any more stuff so he damn well won't bother. That justifies what he does now. That and the perhaps unwarranted anger at her - for not wanting him enough.

"Yeah, but… it just seems too... I don't know. Off..."

_It took you a while blondie_, he thinks.

"Hell I don't know," he says instead. "Been trying to figure that woman out since the day we met. Just a big question mark to me."

And that's not a lie. That is the truth as he knows it. He gives her a bit of dimples, acts a bit goofy – silently praying that she will let it go. She doesn't quite.

"What's the deal with all of this husband and name stuff? Why all the stories? It's all talk right?"

"Yeah, sort of." And it takes a lot not to start spinning off on some cute story. He lives for that kind of stuff. That's who he is, but he makes a flip decision to stick as close to the truth as he can without totally freaking Claire out.

"So who _are_ you?"

"Me… I'm… hell, I'm just a hustler Claire." He downs his beer, looking away towards the pool, not able to meet her earnest eyes.

"But what do you _do_?"

He sets his beer glass down with a loud clang. Fixing her with what he imagines is a menacing stare.

"I _sleep_ with women for money Claire, that's what I do, _**alright!**_?"

She stares at him, those baby-blues almost round and her little rosebud mouth; the perfect caricature of innocence. Something in that wide-eyed stupid look reminds him of Kate and her eternal denial.

"That what you wanna' know?! That what you were hoping to hear?"

Claire finally snaps to and he finds her glaring back defiantly. Looking fiercer and tougher than he'd ever thought she could.

" Yeah, I guess so… So, does that mean,… are you, well, some sort of _gigolo_?"

A vision of himself as Richard Gere in some dapper 80's suit flashes by and he can't suppress the smile that stretches across his own face.

"Yeah… well something like that... " He leans back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him and throws his head back. "You got a problem with that now Kanga?"

"Nope, not at all," she says flippantly. He expects, no hopes that that's it and that she'll move the hell on but she isn't done. "So you were never really married were you?"

He opens one eye to look at her sceptically. _Is she fucking kidding? _He lifts his glass up to his mouth again before he deigns her with an answer.

"You figure me for the marrying kind do ya'?" he says into his beer glass. Enjoying how the soft fizzle feels against his upper lip.

"But I take it you're not here in eh,.. well, ehum… a professional capacity?"

_Aw, she's a sly one! The Goldilock, cutsiepooh-appearance completely false._

"Got that one right Blondie. She couldn't afford me even if she'd wanted to…" he says and wishes it were true.

_He's cheap._ It's degrading how ridiculously cheap he is, and she could have him for nothing, for a song and dance or for absolutely nothing, as long as she admits to it. That she feels it too.

"I'll just check my emails and we'll be out of here… it'll just take a little while okay?" She says breezily. To his big surprise he finds her returning the smile. "James… thanks for, you know. Not lying to me."

"Sure thing sweet cheeks. Take your time. I'm exactly where I wanna' be, doing exactly what I wanna' do." He raises his glass at her, beginning to feel right for the first time this whole hellish day.

"Hey Claire,…" he calls after her and she swivels around.

"Yeah?"

"Don't look if you don't wanna know. Just leave it be… She's alright,... in her own way." He has no idea why he says it, he just does. Maybe it's too late to stick up for Kate, maybe it's to late to put things right.

She just looks at him. Her answer coming just late enough to make it an uncomfortable few seconds. That's when he understands that she already knows.

"I don't understand…"

_And it's a lie_. Her gaze that veers over to the right, and a twitch in the muscles around her mouth. _She already knows._

"Yeah you do Blondie."

She avoids looking at him now. Clasps her little bag to her and turns. He watches as she heads off to find the business centre. Thinking, that maybe, if Kate had played her cards right, if she'd mixed a little bit more of the truth into the lies, changed the ratio a little bit. She might have had a greater chance at keeping this theatre up. Claire, he senses, is a forgiving soul, and more to the point, desperately lonely.

* * *

He orders another beer and as he takes out his wallet he spots Henry's business card in there among all the other scraps of paper and the Indonesian Monopoly money. On a whim he decides to give him a ring, hear what he's been up to. He buys a phone card from the sweet chubby receptionist and uses the phone next to the business centre. The lobby is cool and smells like mildew and incense like most places around here.

It's late afternoon and Henry sounds sleepy when he answers.

"So Marlowe, any news on our little project?"

"Eh, yeah, right. Was going to call you but you didn't exactly leave a contact number… Turns out you were right."

Suddenly all senses are on alert. His palm feels clammy around the old phone.

"What? What the hell you talking 'bout Shorty?"

"Okay, don't ask me how I dug this up because I'm not proud of it," he says in a way that tells Sawyer he really is quite smug about it. "…But it seems, well I've tracked down a link between them,.. to this Widmore guy. Some transactions from a Charles Widmore have ended up with the other one, our guy."

"Enough with the super-sleuth lingo, spit it out! What link, what guy? Who?'

"That dude you asked me to do a background check on. That Danan guy."

Sawyer finds himself hanging on to the phone for dear life. The beer in his stomach seems to be fizzling again. He suddenly feels nauseous.

"James? Dude, you there?"

_How do you sleep nowadays James?_

_Danan._ Who had gotten them all to come all the way up here, away from civilization, away from Hurley too.

_Danan._

_Widmore._

_Remote house._

_No phone, no neighbours. Danan not back like he said he would._

He can't figure it all out but he doesn't like it one bit. _Fuck._ He hasn't got a clue what to do. He cuts the conversation short with Henry and dials Hugo's number. He dials the cellular phone and the office number and no one answers. His heart racing in his chest now – the panic edging in on him. He finally calls the switchboard of the Emporium. He feels a disproportionate sense of relief when an operator answers.

But Hurley is not around or at least the operator has no intention of putting him through. He realizes that he must sound like a maniac calling to hassle the big boss, the way he breathes heavily down the phone and talks incoherently.

_Fuck._

He'll go back and try to talk Kate into leaving, it'd be better to go back south, back to Hugo's. They are not safe here, he knows it. Everything about their current situation screams _sitting duck_ and _set-up_. Something is up, why else would he lure them away like this? What the hell does he want?

He stands for a moment, forehead against the telephone box, trying to gather himself.

* * *

She'd come out of that shed, stealing away like a thief in the glaring sunlight. Her underwear clinched, her indignity hidden in a tight fist as she'd rounded the corner of the house. That warm tingle between her legs and the old familiar shame of the aftermath. Worst of all; the way her heart had pumped with a hundred beats per second.

She'd joined Miles at the beach. Tried to keep up with his subversive type of humor, falling short more than once and noticeably so.

All she can think of, all day – is _him_. His long fingers, the rough surface of his thumb on her, the rhythm that only he knows, intuitively.

_Shit._

This wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to keep him at arm's length. She certainly wasn't supposed to make out like a horny teenager at every single opportunity she got. Wasn't supposed to feel like this either.

_Shit._

He was meant for someone else. Someone better, someone stronger. The jealousy she'd felt back there in the Dharma Initiative. An ugly, repulsive type of envy that she can barely bear to own up to. Her standing there in the shadows of her own freakishly picturesque house, him walking across the lawn to his cosy little yellow home. But as bad as it had hurt her to watch him, knowing that Juliet was waiting for him there inside - it had felt logical. Like he deserved that. The normalcy, a proper whole life, something she'd be unable to give him.

* * *

Miles is restless and so is she. They make pop noodles for the fifty-ninth time today. Both settling for each other's company. Both waiting for someone else. The longing for him is absurd, seeing as he's only been gone for a few hours.

She knows what she can offer him will never be enough – but the other option, unimaginable now.

_What if he leaves? What if he withdraws as he's threatened? _

The temptation to give in, to throw herself headlong down into him and try not to worry when she'll hit hard ground.

But how long can she fake it for him? How long would she be able to hide her shallowness, her lack of substance from him? How long before he'd see her for the pitiful ugly creature that she is?

How long, before he'd understand?

_She is not. - Not worth loving._

They eat it sitting side-by-side on the beach. They've taken turns watching Aaron and they are bored to death with the many miserable attempts at surfing. Rubber sandals tossed to the side, enjoying the fresh breeze blowing in and the warm coarse sand against their feet. It's dark here, the sand. Something to do with vulcanoes. Not that she cares or can even think of it right now. Sawyer. _Shit._ He knows exactly how to get to her.

Aaron cooing and kicking wildly in the air on a blanket in the shadow of both of their backs. She can't help touching his little energetic legs, the socks half on as usual. He is alternating between grunting and making shrill sounds – just discovering to his great delight that he has a voice that he can control.

Miles hands her a fork and she takes it with a smile. They eat under silence at first, only their crude slurping and Aaron's little bird like chirps disrupting the sound of the waves splashing against the beach.

" You know he looked for you the longest time…"

"What? When?..." Taken aback by Miles' uncharacteristically personable tone, she holds the pot noodles between her knees.

He looks almost embarrassed.

"James, Jimmy-boy. He looked for you for ages, never stopped. Had all of us scouring the island too, long after we'd given up on anyone returning."

"So what?... He wanted off the island, of course he'd be looking."

"Yeah at first I thought so too, but then again. He was with Juliet, they had a good life together, you know in a quiet, dull way. But he still kept looking, after all of us had settled down and sort of accepted it all. He still kept making us rake through those grids."

She shrugs. Doesn't know where he's going with this, isn't quite sure she wants to know.

"But he was with Juliet. Like you said… they were happy."

"If they were so damn happy, then why didn't he stop looking?" he says quietly, almost to himself.

"No idea Miles, I just hope he doesn't screw things up here… With Claire you know…"

"Yeah sure hope so. Come on chicalina!" He says jumping up suddenly, handing her his empty paper cup and bending down to pick up Aaron. "Lets get up and give this thug a proper scrub over… so his mummy can show her gratitude to Uncle Miles later."

"You're awful!"

"Yeah, that's what they say… I'll have her eating out of my hand in no time!"

"Wouldn't be too sure, _you're_ an old man compared to her. She might want to date someone her own age."

He stares out her, a feigned outraged expression on his face as he hugs Aaron closely.

"What? I'm just a spring-chicken!"

"What do you think happened to Danan?" she says as she trudges on behind him with all of their stuff. She'd tried calling him repeatedly but the location must be way off the usual network because she can't get a signal. She is starting to feel uneasy about it. He ought to be back by now.

"Beats me. Maybe he's got something better to do than hang out with a bunch of loosers like us?"

"Yeah, maybe," she says with a lightness she doesn't feel.

* * *

They are late getting back. It's already getting dark and the rain is hanging heavily in the air. They can smell it coming, that musty fragrance of a tropical rain. Tension building up both around them and within. She doesn't like it. Doesn't trust him alone with her all this time, fearing that he will slip up, intentionally or not.

They hang out on the porch, playing with Aaron when finally they hear the spluttering engine of the old Vespa coming closer. Sawyer, with his hair in a mess, windblown and tanned. She doesn't understand how the sight of him, in spite of everything, can still bring her heart to a standstill.

"What's up?" she says as he switches the engine off, balancing the weight of the bike between his thighs. Claire gets off, makes her way towards the porch. "Did you have a good time?"

They watch as she wrestles off the helmet and just drops it on the ground.

_Something is different. _

Her eyes, dark blue and hostile. She just grabs Aaron from them, literally yanking him away. Makes to walk away but seems to change her mind, comes right back to Kate. She has Aaron clasped to her chest, a protective hand behind his back and another behind his head.

"Who are you?" her voice low but it jars in Kate's ears.

She feels herself falling down. Drowning. The sounds around her slurred and far away as if she's under water.

"I'm… I'm…" she says but nothing else comes out.

"I don't know who you are… but you're _not_ my sister. What kind of psycho are you?" Claire hisses it in Kate's face.

"I don't know…" she whispers back.

"And that Jack?! You even know him? Jack Shephard, my _**brother**_? Doctor…all that a coincident or..?"

"Yeah I know Jack," she says, her voice not carrying properly, sounding broken and pathetic. "We were engaged… a long time ago."

She adds it quietly and tries in vane to avoid looking into Claire's eyes. The contempt in them – it kills her.

_It's over._

"So what? You're some kind of crazy stalker, you're so hung up on this bloke that you pretend to be related to me? Why? I don't understand – help me understand Kate! If that's even your real name?"

And then the tears, she sees the first signs of them, welling up in Claire's eyes and she just wants to die. The pain in the young woman's eyes. A pain that she has causes, single handedly, for her own selfish reasons.

"It's my real name," she just says dumbly, because the rest… she doesn't even know where to begin. She's lost.

_She has lost them._

Claire turns to Miles. He's literally cowering, nothing of his natural coolness remains. He looks like a little boy about to be scolded.

" And you? What have you got to do with this!? Are you in on all these lies?"

"I… I just really like you," he says meekly eyeing her cautiously. Her stance, hostile and ready to fight. If it weren't for the child in her arms providing a safety buffer – Kate is pretty sure she'd have physically attacked one of them.

The pressure of the silence. The lack of answers. Even Sawyer. She'd hoped, no expected him to think on his feet, to say something. Make it all go away. But the way he just stands there, leaning casually against the porch pillar. Arms limp at his sides and eyes on his own shoes - something dawns on her. Clear as crystal.

_It's him._

He has done something. Said something to make this happen. _His fault._ To make her pay. She'd known this might be why he'd come, known it but still not quite believed in it. The Sawyer of these last few days. Behind the teasing and the taunting, she'd sensed the presence of that other man. A man that wants something else, want so much more. Wants her, and wouldn't hurt her for the world. But she guesses she must have been mistaken about it.

_This is payback_.

For her never making up her mind. For coming trampling back into his life with Juliet - for the wreckage she'd caused. But right now she doesn't care why, how he justifies this. All she knows is that this is all on _him_. His doing.

_He did this._

Claire says nothing more, it seems like the air has just gone out of her. She just looks defeated, small and scared, holding her baby against her. She sighs like she's giving up on everything and disappears through the open glass doors.

"Well that went well, considering. Huh? She took it well huh? Still salvable right?" Miles says detachedly. And she wonders how he can make a joke now. When everything is falling apart around them. But he looks so miserable, and she realizes that it's all an act of bravado, it's what he does.

"No Miles. I think this is it. Thanks to him."

She hears how hoarse her own voice is as she points at Sawyer. _The bastard._ He's watching them both indifferently. With the sun-streaked hair and the crumpled blue shirt over his wide slanting shoulders. The stubble around his mouth dark and unusually long, the scruffiness making him look hard. He shakes the hair out of his face, looking calm and collected and not the least bit guilty.

"Hey, ain't no use looking at me. This is your own freakin' mess! Reckon it took her about ten minutes with good old googlesnoop to sass you out. I guess you should count yourself lucky she ain't been surfing 'America's most wanted yet'."

"I don't care what you say… I know - and you know - that _**you**_ did this."

"Look. I had a beer an' we had a little chat._ She already knew._ The only thing you ought to ask yourself is why the hell she hasn't checked out your story before? You'd have to be a bloody retard to believe all that crap."

She wants to kill him. Seriously reflects over where her little pocket knife is right now and if that would hurt him enough.

Miles just looks at Sawyer with those dark cynical eyes.

"Yeah, thanks a lot buddy. Just 'cause you're too fucked-up to get it together no one else should either right?"

"Aw come on Miles. The stuff you've been telling her, aren't you amazed she hasn't figured it out yet?"

"I was sort of, but all I know is that we were doing fine before you got here. And now – yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if she's on the next flight out of here. She must think we're real freaks." Miles sounds both despondent and angry and Kate watches as he turns around to go inside the house.

"Crap," he says, almost to himself as he passes the threshold. " I _really_ liked her."

She can barely look at him. The man, his skin glowing against the dramatic backdrop of the slate grey clouds, so heavy with rain they are almost touching the ground. He just stands there, like all is well in his little world. Starts rummaging through his pockets in his usual hunt for a smoke. The lips that mould around the cigarette filter. Those lips that have been on her today, more intimate, closer to being let in than anyone else. The betrayal – devastating.

"How could you do this?"

"I reckon this is the least of your worries right now Freckles. Turns out I was spot on about your pal, the great Gatsby."

She is speechless for a second. Then she decides that whatever he says isn't going to make it better. Whatever he says will not change the fact that he's betrayed her. He has wittingly and knowingly hurt her and there is no getting past that. No getting over it.

He stares her straight in the eyes. And she searches them for something true, for some meaning , some explanation for all this. But she can't find it anywhere. It just isn't there. He is guarded and off limits now. It was an idiotic idea to begin with, to think that she and he – could ever be.

"Oh just fuck off Sawyer!"

And she has to run, has to get out of there, because he can't see her crying. She won't give him the satisfaction.

* * *

Claire doesn't come out of her room again. Miles retires early to his and Sawyer, she wishes he were dead but he's living and breathing lying in there on the sofa.

She's on the porch alone as the rain starts falling. At first big fat drops, hitting the ground and the edges of the stone paved porch. Sporadically and maddeningly irregular drip drops.

Within minutes it has developed into a proper tropical rain storm. The wind so strong the trees and small palms around the garden swish loudly almost folding completely against the ground.

Her hair lifts and flaps wildly around her head and her skirt mirrors it. It billows like a parachute around her hips and if she wasn't in such a turmoil herself she might have been conscious about the immodesty of it, blowing up around her thighs.

She has her cell and she alternates between trying to call Hurley and Danan, again and again, never getting a line. She tries Dewi's number too, just for the heck of it. Holding the cell up and down, walking back and forward on the little terrace, angling herself in as many ways she can think of but it makes no difference.

Hell, she's even climbed up on the little porch wall holding on to the pillar but it's no use either.

As she dials and dials, looking for the little bars to light up she keeps thinking of _him_. That in the shed. It must have just been his way of winding her up. Just a joke. She wonders if that is really all she is, just a joke, someone to play with. She had forgotten the most essential fact about him. He's a conman, he does this for a living. He's tricked her before, that stunt with the guns such a long time ago, back in the beach.

But he'd said 'give in' like he meant it, and she almost had. She'd almost crossed that line. Now it's over, he's gotten what he wanted. He's hurt her on the deepest level possible and she is crushed - _annihilated._

_Game over. Thank you for playing._

The rain is like a hard pressure hose on the little roof, falling so copiously it splashes against her legs as she stands there, the edge of her dress getting wetter by the second. She leans here and there and tries the phone over and over again. Needs someone. Needs a friend.

But she still can't get a line.

* * *

_Please review if you liked it - hope you did!_


	19. Another darkness

_Thanks again for the reviews and for still reading this story: Trapped in aMatchBox, Gabism,Skunji, Torchwood, Yema, Simsi, Layla and Delamik! You're the best! Thanks for the congrats on the new job too. I have a story planned out and an ending in sight. I'm hoping to get there eventually (meaning I won't leave it hanging – promise!)_

_Hal9000: welcome out of lurkdom! Glad you like Danan, who's a real person in my life, though I've tweaked his age a bit (a lot), since 'my' D. is still a little boy and not devious at all : ). _

_This chapter has been rewritten and rewritten over the last few days and I admit I went over it one more time after Hal9000's review because fact is, these two are still dancing around - and how so! – So now we'll have 19 chaps of 'gah' instead of 18._

_Rated M for language, some smut and mature subjects (though nobody is especially mature in this fic)_

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

* * *

**Another darkness**

* * *

_The rain_.

It doesn't stop, doesn't ease up. That so much water can come from the sky - it seems surreal.

She gives up on dialling. Just stands there watching the spectacular show unfolding around her. Doesn't know what to do next.

_And then, she's there. _

She sees her foot first. A dainty little naked foot pushing the door open, her slight figure sliding through. And Kate hadn't expected it. It makes her want to throw up. This sight of the girl, this girl in her ridiculously cute pyjama, the one that is slightly too short for her and has a pattern of teddy bears against a mint green background. It swells in the wind and makes her look a little like the Michelin man. Her hair dancing, jumping, tangling itself across her face. She's barefoot and looks so small, like a kid standing there. But she's not a child. She's a grown woman, a mother and she's beyond upset. What's worse: _she's frightened. _The upheaval of emotions matching the storm raging around them. The crackle of electricity across the indigo sky, brightening her up as if under a blast of neon.

Kate's instincts tell her to duck and run, that she's too weak, too frail – she can't deal with this. Can never unravel the web of lies she's told. She can hardly remember them anymore.

"Why! Why did you pick me? It's creepy, don't you get that!" Claire yells, a high pitched frayed sound that pierces through her heart.

_So ashamed_. It had felt so good to be that other Kate. A Kate that was unselfish, caring and most of all, a good person. Painful to have to shred the disguise and reveal herself as the piece of shit that she truly is.

"I found out about you from… Jack and…" The agonizing weight of Claire's wrath makes her dizzy and disoriented. Can't do this. Can't.

_Wants to run. _

"What? Jack knows about me?" she cries. "Then why hasn't he looked me up!" Frantically pushing away the hair that the wind whips against her face. _God, how the hell should she answer that?_

The end of it. Of their little family, of their safe haven. It's falling apart and Claire can't help kicking down the walls. _It has to be done_. Kate can only watch as she demolishes it with a heartbreaking fury.

"He hasn't had the… He isn't... I think he would, he will look you up … eventually."

"And why did you? In what twisted moment did you think _**this**_ was okay?"

She can't look at her. Just stands there with her cell phone in a death clasp. The wind flogging her from behind. And she's grateful for the hair lashing across her face. Grateful to hide behind it. She is so ashamed.

"When I found out… heard that you were on your way to LA and that you were giving him, Aaron up… I just…"

"What? Decided to take advantage of me and lie to me!" Claire's voice is shrill and she holds on hard to the handle of the open glass doors behind her. As if she's trying to keep Kate from coming in. Her anger intensified by fear and by the immensity of the lie.

"No!" she exclaims, feeling powerless to steer this. One little sidestep and it will be over. _ It's already over. Already. _"I just didn't want you to feel all alone and…and that there wasn't another choice."

"But… what do you want with us?" Claire's tone is bossy, impatient with the stuttering ambiguity, with Kate's cowardice. "You want Aaron? Is that it!"

"No, no that's not it." She forces herself to remain as calm as she can. "I just wanted him… to be with you..."

"So you did this for a _**stranger**_? But why would you make up all that stuff? Passing yourself off as my sister?…You're sick!" She sniffles a bit though Kate can't tell if she's crying. The eyes are a bit pink and the plain revulsion in them makes her want to cower behind something. "You must be pretty much nuts to come up with something like this! Do you realize how freaky this is?"

"It was an impulse, I saw you there in the bed and you looked so sad and… I knew you were giving him up. I'm so sorry …"

Claire just ignores Kate's pitiful little apology and moves onto a surprisingly irrelevant topic.

"So what about you and Jack, my brother?" she says 'brother' cynically, as if it's some sick joke. " Did he dump you when he found out that you're a freaking nutjob?"

Kate is taken aback by the loud-mouthed aggressiveness. _But she did this_. She brought this out, this angry, vulgar side of Claire.

"I… I was… there was someone else and I just couldn't…"

"Was it _him_?" Claire says in disgust, nodding towards the house where _he_ is probably sleeping tightly right now.

"Yeah," she says quietly, amazed at how easily it comes out. Something she can hardly even admit to herself: "Still is."

Claire, turns and knocks her head against the door in a deliberate move. Hanging on to that handle for dear life.

" God,…I don't know what to do now... I have nowhere to go. Shit Kate. What will I do now? I have no one…" On the verge of crying now.

"You have Aaron."

"Yes and a half brother that wants nothing to do with me!" she glowers as if this is Kate's fault. And perhaps it is.

"Don't go…" she says feebly and she almost adds a 'please' there but it really wouldn't be fair. "Stay. You can stay here, Hugo will take care of you and Miles will too. They are your friends now… I'll go, I'll leave..."

Claire pushes down the door handle, quickly throwing a last glace at Kate.

_Disgusted. _

"…I don't know Kate. I can't… can't even think right now… How could you do this? What kind of person _**are**_ you?"

_She's just scared. Just frightened_, Kate reminds herself. But inside there is a whirlpool of despair threatening to drag her down. _What kind of person are you?_

The kind of person that doesn't deserve to watch Aaron grow.

_Deserves nothing._

But at least, maybe because of her, Aaron will grow up with his mother. _And that alone,_ she thinks, _that alone must be enough._

* * *

_She doesn't cry. _

Maybe she always knew this would happen. At the back of her mind she knew it couldn't last. She thinks about packing her bag. She'll have to leave early. Maybe walk down to the village and see if she can catch a lift with someone. Go somewhere, she has no idea where.

_It's okay, _she keeps telling herself_. She's been through worse. She will be okay._

Frantically shoves away that other thought. _Can't loose Aaron. Can't._

She enters the dim living room, trying to quietly close the glass doors behind her, Sawyer is splayed out on the sofa. Lying there shirtless, as if he's sunbathing on the beach. As if to taunt her. The rain chills the air and she wonders why he isn't cold.

He has one knee hooked over the sofa's back, leisurely, the other stretched out, long and lean, foot reaching over the edge. As if he doesn't have a care in the world. Pale blue jeans fabric wrinkling at the top of his bulky thighs, his arms thrown above his head. His cheeks noticeably pink and there is something deceptively angelic about it. – A misleading innocence that ignites a fire inside that she wants nothing to do with.

_He did this._

His eyelashes draw dark feathery contours across his cheekbones. His lips are parted, the edge of his teeth visible between them and he's snoring softly. The hair, messy and stringy over the cushion. And her face sizzle at the thought of that dirty blond head between her thighs.

She tries to usher it away, the need it stirs up. _He did this_.

_He thinks he's such a goddamn gift to women. _Thinks he's a veritable Casanova, that no one can resist him. That self-confidence he's got about his own body and the pride in the skills he's collected throughout the years. Ambitiously, like other people accumulate working experience. His fingers, that beautiful mouth of his and all the damn pony tricks he knows. _Should have stopped him._ Should have kicked him in the nuts the moment that hand had slid up her thigh beneath the sarong. She is angry at herself for letting go like that, for letting him. _What the heck had she been thinking?_

Though truth is; she had just followed along, unable to refuse him. It's that hold he's got on her, like a harpoon, deeply and painfully burrowed into her core. The attraction to him that transcends any reason.

_Even now. Even after what he has done. _

And it has been so long, he was right about that one. He was even right about the other thing. The last time had been that desperate night with Jack just before returning to the island. She'd been heartbroken. Had just left Aaron with his grandmother, relinquishing something, someone that wasn't hers to keep.

_Wasn't meant for her._

She had felt the darkness closing in on her, just like now, and had not been able to make herself go back home to her house, to all those empty rooms, to his abandoned nursery. She had just needed someone, anyone and the kind of guilt she had woken up with the morning after._ Murky, vile and dirty._

_She's not going to cry. _Can't because she knows if she starts she won't be able to stop. _It will be okay_, she tells herself.

He grunts a little, changes the position of his arms, and suddenly his eyes pop open wide. A smart-alecky look about him. Too clear and alert for someone who was just snoring it away a second ago.

_Just pretending to sleep._

"You enjoying watching me sleep Freckles?" Lazily stretching his arms above his head. The muscles under the skin visible as he moves. That pesky infatuation with him, making her forget for an instant that she hates him.

_But he did this._

"Would like it a lot more if I'd had my knife…" and she's isn't joking.

"Aw... no need to play tough with me baby." He rubs his eyes with a thumb, squeezing them shut, a short interlude before he looks at her again. "Want me to tuck you in do ya'?"

_She does. Crap, she does. _

"No. I was just thinking how I'd dispose of your body… after I've killed you," she says and it's a bit of a stretch to say that she's indifferent, that she's not affected by him. The way he puts one of his hands against his chest. And she knows him well enough to know that it's all intentional, all deliberately planned and plotted for desired effect.

"I know a good way you could dispose of my body." indicating himself with a nod. That beautiful skin meeting the pale, faded blue of his jeans. Blue and golden, the colours of him. And the damned dimpled leer he blasts her with - making him look like a poor parody of himself.

"You must be happy now that you've gotten what you came for... Wrecked everything…. Does it feel good James?" she wheezes. She can hardly breathe. There is not enough air for the two of them

He cocks his eyebrows as if he's bored, as if saying _'meh'_. As if he had nothing to do with it.

_He did this. _

The side of his mouth curling up in a sarcastic little smile and that's all she needs. Something snaps, just bursts and her self control goes to pieces. Wants to hurt him.

_He. Did. This._

She turns on her heel, and she doesn't know how or why and she doesn't care. She just clambers over the little rackety coffee table. Her only thought to reach him. _To hurt him. _

He looks expectant as if he's waiting for this.

Doesn't know what she's doing, desire and fury hopelessly intertwined. She slips on top, confused by the fact that she so easily attains the advantage. At the crossroads she slides down the easier path –always. The one she knows the best. _And she truly is her father's daughter._ The inherent undercurrent of violence that is hers. She knows it's her fists, her knuckles pounding on him. Knows it is his underarms shielding his face, knows it's her thighs clamped around his waist for support. She's all over him, she hits and hits and hits. But it feels like one of those dreams when you move in slow motion, through jelly. Her fists pounding relentlessly, trying to get to his face, make him hurt. _Make him hurt_. Pummelling him as hard and fast as she can.

None of the punches satisfactory, none of them causing enough damage and she hears her self panting loudly, her breathing laboured as if they were having sex, not trying to beat the living day light out of each other. But then again, it's only _her_, she realizes suddenly. He just lies there infuriatingly passive, shielding his face from the viciousness of her attacks. He lets her go on until she runs out of steam, until she can hit no more, crying now, a snotty pitiful type of wailing that she doesn't recognize as herself.

When she pauses, just for a second to collect herself, his arms, determined and solid, pulls her in and holds her in a firm grip, a hard hug against his chest. And she can't move. Can't do anything but snivel into his neck. Bawling like a pathetic little girl. His hand large and awkward in her hair, between her shoulder blades, hushing her, rocking her like she'd rock Aaron.

_Orange blossom and spices._

The skin of his shoulder is warm and satiny against her lips. His chest against hers, thump-thump-thump.

"Schush…" he whispers onto her hair blowing air through his nostrils tickling her forehead. "It's okay, it's okay… You'll sleep on it and tomorrow you'll see it will be okay. Come on, I'll tuck you in."

_It's over._

She knows he's lying. But she wants the lie, wants so desperately to believe in it. He struggles to sit up with her without loosening his grip around her, she ends up straddling his lap, her forehead heavy on his shoulder. He holds her hard, but he doesn't have to anymore. She can't do anything. _It's over._

She hardly notices when he gets up, nudging her to wrap her legs around his hips. Carrying her like a big overgrown child. His lips against her ear, shushing her, rocking her like a baby.

_So tired._

An exhaustion that goes deeper than the physical. Wants to fall down. Never wants to wake up. The light is on in the bedroom but still the darkness envelops her tightly. The lethargy of not caring anymore. He can do anything with her now, she's beyond caring.

_It's over._

He kicks the door shut behind them, stumbling slightly under her weight as he does. The only thing that matters, that prickly energy of him against her. He hoists her up on the bed as if she were just a big rag-doll, edging away the bed-sheet with his elbow and to her big astonishment tucks it right back up around her. All the way up to her chin. Leaning in over her - just to look at her. His hair hanging down around his cheeks, shadowing his face. Her breathing almost stops from the vicinity of him. She thinks he will kiss her but he doesn't.

_So tired._

"See, all tucked in. So you comfy Freckles? Anything else you desire?" The smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes. His way of saying 'sorry'. Because he can't.

_Doesn't do 'sorry'._

She shakes her head, almost too tired to move it. Wants to sleep but doesn't think she will be able to. And she wants him. Wants him near her. The anger gone, _spent._ What's left only the undeniable need for him. The desire to be someone else, to be enough for him.

"I admit it ain't the best tuckin'-in I've ever done. I mean, you still got your shoes on, an' your dress is wet. Looks like I've been a bit sloppy… "

He sits up to pull the sheet off her feet. Her espadrilles are wet and even the straps are soaked from the rainwater. He reaches down to untie them and she feels how he struggles with the straps and the tight knot around her ankles, swearing softly to himself. His face – the picture of concentration. Smiling up at her in triumph when he finally manages to untie both of them. He tosses them on the floor below the bed, one after another. Gives her feet a little squeeze before he covers them with the sheet again.

And though he is to blame for all of it and she hated him a while ago. She doesn't hate him now. He isn't quite forgiven but she calls a truce. Just for tonight. Wants him. Wants his wayward, naughty hands.

"Now, 'bout that dress?..." voice like melted chocolate, deep, dark and rich. "Let's make this a proper tuck in. Come on darling, _up_ you go!"

He draws away the sheet from her, grasps her right wrist and cajoles her off the bed and she has no idea what he's up to. Her mind is racing ahead of her, imagining all sort of things. That dance they always do, the rhythm that has changed drastically. Tonight it has lost its fast frantic pace, moved from flamenco to a decelerated shuffle, uncoordinated but affectionate, stepping on each other's toes. Pretending to slow-dance to a music that only they can hear.

_Just an excuse to touch one another._

She's so tired and most of all she just wants to remain as she is. But he is insistent. Hands on her waist, holding her up, stubbornly steering her towards the little washbasin between the wardrobes. And she just follows as if she has lost her capability to move on her own.

He positions her there in front of the old cloudy mirror with its cobweb of fine cracks. He stands behind her, chest against back, his arms around her waist. His cheek that brushes by hers as he reaches forward to grab a bottle of something off the little glass shelf above the washbasin. He studies it seriously, and obviously dissatisfied, places it right back, picking up another. Content with his choice this time he nods to himself, his straw-coloured hair tickling her ear as he squeezes out a little amount of soap in his hand.

"Lean forward," he orders, a no nonsense kind of voice.

"What?" she says stupidly. Has no idea what he's up to, too fatigued to fight it.

"We gonna' do this or not? Wash the make up off… ain't that what you ladies do?"

She's not wearing a smudge of make-up but she's too drained to try to explain it to him so she goes along with it.

"We're gonna' wash that grime right off ya'. This is a proper tuckin' in sweetheart. Wouldn't have it any other way."

She watches the two of them in the mirror, the rest of the room in relative darkness, their faces lit up by the naked bulb over the sink. That playful smile over her shoulder that has her heartbeat quickening. He cocks his head towards the basin and she leans forward. Her buttocks against his crotch, and he comes as close as he can.

"Close your eyes baby."

She hears him turn on the old brass faucet, the water splashing against the porcelain. His hands working the soap into a lather and then his fingers on her face. And oh, the soft pads following the outline of her brow, carefully stroking her nose, her cheeks, her forehead, taking a gentle curve around her mouth, cautious not to get the soap too close to her lips. His fingertips continue below the jaw-line and it tickles making her burst out in a unintentional chortle that she tries to swallow. He drives his fingertips in her ears, follows the curl of them and down to her neck. His large compact body against her. The warmth of his skin, the rhythmical pounding of his heart. Or maybe it's her own.

"This how ya' do it?" The mellow sound of his voice.

"No, never like that," she says quietly, loosing herself under his fingertips.

And then comes the water, the chilly clear water. Waking her up. He splashes it against her face, alternating with wiping his hands across it. She feels like a cat, her nose searches the hollow of his hand, buffs at him. He's gentler than a cat-mother and she doesn't understand why he's doing this. Except – perhaps it's just his way of apologizing. _For what he did. _His 'sorry'.

Her life has just shattered, not for the first time. Through the drowsiness comes the thought that the worst has already happen. She has nothing left to loose. Nothing to fear. And in a way - it's a liberating feeling.

He abruptly turns the faucet off. Dries her face with the little hand towel hanging there. Meticulously - while she just stands there, arms hanging loosely at her sides. The towel is brought all the way down to the top of her dress. Soaking up the little droplets of water that he has splashed there.

"'Bout time someone cleaned up that mess," he says, fingers smoothing back her hair from her shoulders, baring her neck to the mirror.

He jokes, exaggerates that Southern twang. She knows he does it because he's nervous too, same as her. There is something oddly erotic about meeting his eyes in the mirror, seeing the two of them together like that. The inevitable tension between them.

"Take me to bed… " she says to his mirror image. Stringy hair falling haphazardly around his faux brusque face. If he's surprised he doesn't show it, just grins at her as if she's just said something funny.

"Well I would… but hygiene is important – a concept that seems to be lost on some…" he drawls, fixing her with his gaze as he leans to turn the faucet back on. And she knows what's coming next. Can read it in his smirk but she can't do anything about it. Doesn't want to do anything but stay here. _Let him._ He buffs her closer to the washbasin, it's rounded edge meeting the top of her thighs and she can feel the cool porcelain through her dress. He blinks fast, divulging that he's not sure either but the pull is too strong and there is nothing they can do about it.

Cheek to cheek. He's heavy, against her back. He towers above her and has to bend over slightly. He lowers his mouth just below her ear, slate grey eyes quickly skimming her face in the mirror as if to ask for her approval before he decides not to wait for it.

The velvety sensation of his lips travelling downwards, the length of her neck. And then without warning, - a surprise attack - he dips his hand in the whirling water of the basin and brings his fingers to her breast, deliberately soaking through dress and all. She almost chokes at the sensation, his fingers through the thin cotton fabric. The pooling of heat between her legs, already making her imagine him there.

"What are you doing..?" she exhales. He looks up at her reflection, flicking his hair away but it falls right down as it were again. His cheeks are rosy and healthy, as if he's just done a rapid sprint. He grins at her through the tangle of hair, squinting, pursing his lips in that tight little smirk he's got, looking almost happy here with her.

"Yeah, ain't exactly the best solution for a wet dress problem… any other ideas?"

But she can hardly speak for his fingers still rotating slowly over the now wet spot of her dress, the nipples protruding underneath the clingy blue fabric.

_Traitors._

She can't have this now. Can't deal with it all. But she can't do anything about it. The way he does it, fingertips sliding across and back again, around in maddening little loops and pirouettes. Wants to shed the dress, shed the barriers, everything. _With him._

"So '_I'm still'_ huh…? Still what baby?" His wide crocodile smile as his fingers pivot around and around. The tease of his tone and suddenly she understands what this is about.

_He was listening in!_

The sly bastard must have lied in there eavesdropping to the whole exchange with Claire.

He rests his chin against her shoulder as he studies her face, clearly enjoying watching her response, rough fingertips still milling around the sensitive tips of her breasts. _Wants._

"You're still a pain in the neck Sawyer, that's what you are."

He lets out that throaty _'mmm'_ sound that gives her a pang of longing for him. She remember that sound, remembers it so well.

"You'll have to do better than that Freckles… that does nothing for a man's ego."

The blazing fire in her, ignited by him here, pressed against her, his fingertips and the little 'mmm'. She doesn't break the contact, mesmerized by the image of him in front of her, touching her. His beautiful hand under the faucet, against the rush of water.

"You've got a big enough ego as it is."

" I do huh?" he pauses for a moment and she anticipates the bragging about how big something else is when he blows her apart with his breath against her neck, whispering in her ear. "I can't wait much longer Kate. I need… You need to…"

He doesn't have to say more because she knows. He wants _that. _Wants what she can't give him without breaking. Wants a total surrender that she is too frail to give.

And then, the intrusion, welcome as it is. Under the wet hem of her dress, the cold sensation of his fingers, stroking her thighs the way he'd touched her face just minutes ago. Back and forward but steadily upwards. His other hand on her hip, hitching up her blue dress.

Icy cold skin, fingertips glazing under the skirt of her dress, fast, moving along hurriedly. His thumb that brazenly pushes her panties to the side. _Oh._ Skin chilled by the water. Slinking in and she yelps when he rubs smoothly against her. Embarrassed by how wet she already is. And she can't blame it on the rain.

She parts her legs to leave him space, as if he's just pressed the welcome-in-button and she knows this makes him smile against her shoulder. A satisfied arrogant smile, no doubt. Can feel his teeth there. He wastes no time, makes himself busy.

_Damn him. _The gyrating, spinning and turning. The slippery slide of him. His thumb, that expertise that she can scoff at under any other circumstances. Now. All she can do is to strain against him. She tries to keep her legs tightly together, tries to remain in control but it's impossible with the slick coolness of fingertips.

Her eyes shut in an unbearable shyness and when she dares to sneak a glance she sees that his are wide open, staring at her above her shoulder though a tangle of dark blonde hair. Lips drawn in a half smile, immersing himself in her. The thumb just on the right spot, his angle slightly awkward but enough. The glossy friction, enough to make her fall apart. It's cold and delicious and hell. _How does he know these things? _How does he know exactly how to make her come undone?

_Oh hell._

The pressure of fingers slipping inside of her. Just enough, delicately dipping in, reading her perfectly. Her whole body contracts against the sensation. She wants to writher and moan under his fingers – wants to be that kind of woman, someone who gives in, completely. But she can't.

Thumb still determined, the soft rotating movements. Glistening, circular moves that commands her, and she can't do anything about it. Can't resist the swell, the surge that makes her clamp her legs together around his hand. She gives in to short intense waves. Held up by him, his arm around her waist, the other helping her ride it out, prolonging it. Surrenders to the long languid strokes making her want to cry. All senses deliciously heightened there.

"So twice in a day huh… bet that hasn't happened in a while huh?" A cheeky murmur against her ear, fingers still between her thighs, caressing her in the aftermath. She is agonizingly worked up, her breathing erratic. And it's too much. She's too raw.

She mumbles something, casting down her eyes. That familiar feeling of shame after coming down. Wants to hide her face. _She has no dignity_. She gives him nothing and he gives her everything and somehow that keeps the power in his court. Feels him against her buttocks through the dress. He's hard and she feels somewhat guilty.

"And_ that_ sweetheart, is how you do a good ol' Southern tucking in," he exclaims as he withdraws his hand. And she finds herself immediately missing it. Feels the swell of her arousal already building up for the second time.

He sighs, sweeps his lips across her shoulder and tugs the hem of her dress down. He wraps both his arms tightly around her, determinedly lifting her up. Not without a struggle. They fall back on the bed, she on the left and he slumps down next to her on top of the sheet, flat on his back and she still fears he'll get up and leave. Instead he pushes one arm into the little tunnel between her neck and the pillow's edge, hand gripping her shoulder. Forces her nearer, his eyes already closed, pretending to be bored and sleepy.

He pulls her in tightly, cheek against chest. Exactly how they are supposed to be. Soft against hard. His fingers that sweep her arm, up and down, as if he's polishing it.

_And she thinks; she could get used to this. _

"I… love this…" he whispers and it's so out of character for him. The sweet confession. She doesn't quite trust her own ears. Him articulating what she can't say. She sticks her nose in deeper against his skin, doesn't want to think, doesn't want to look at him, can't go there. Who knows where she might end up. She inhales him, physically takes in his presence, her nerves grappling with the concept of him here.

_He is beautiful. _Too beautiful.

Relishing in the natural warmth of his body and the way the rain hits the roof. The rumble of the thunder shaking the single glass windows, like china in a cabinet. The window shutters banging against the house from the wind.

She feels him shivering next to her. Lifts her head up to look at him.

"You scared of the thunder Sawyer?"

"Am I what now?" Eyes widening, the picture of offended surprise. A scowl simmering, threatening to break out.

"You heard me." She lies back down, ear against his chest. Thinking that it will leave a mark there, her ear pressing into his skin, just a little bit left of his heart.

"Tst," he bites back. Awkwardly. Blowing her off in a way that betrays him and she smiles to herself, her chin and mouth buried against his chest. Sneaks a little kiss there that he doesn't even notice. _Thunder huh? Who would have thought?_

It makes her almost forget his betrayal. Makes her almost forgive him. The sweetness of him here. With her.

_At least for tonight._

"_I'll_ keep you safe," she says, stroking her fingertips along his bristled jaw line. An echo of something _he_ once said. He chuckles at that, a clucky comfortable little belly-chuckle. Makes her feel like she's home. Like there is a chance for them. _They could be like this._

"So, still don't want me huh?" he says testily against the crown of her head. "Or is this _it_ baby? You made up your mind… you, are ya' gonna' say it?"

His fingertips sweeping up her arm, circling her bare shoulder. And even though she can't see him, she knows what he looks like. Knows he's biting his bottom lip, the way he does when he feels off his game, unconfident, disadvantaged.

"What..." she mumbles, unbearably sleepy after the release. Sated and strangely peaceful in his arms. Hardly able to keep her eyes open. The sweet rawness between her legs, still in her dress with the wet skirt. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. She wonders briefly if he's slipped her something.

"You know…" he mutters. And she knows that look too. It's a shy grumpiness , as if he holds a grudge against the entire universe. His fingers on her arm, leaving her with goose bumps.

"Yeah, sure I'll say it," and she can't believe the delighted surprise on his face as she leans her head back to look up at him. The boyish expectant nervousness, so she adds: "_As soon_ as you say you're sorry."

"Sorry for what now?" He draws back from her, looking offended as hell.

"For Claire! What else!"

_Oh, and here comes the sulk. Of course._

"Nope. Ain't gonna' happen darling. Ain't done nothing wrong and I got _nothing_ to apologize for."

_That sullen bastard. He ought to be begging for her forgiveness._

He sits up abruptly. The moment is over. The magic broken. He scoots down to the foot of the bed and gets up. Withdraws so fast she doesn't quite know what happened.

"Well okay then. Good to know how we stand on that one. Good night Sawyer."

'Yeah, that's right baby, just pretend that you don't want me here. That's what you always do. Ain't like I'm gonna' miss you. "

_He could have had her. _If he'd only shut the hell up. The inevitable post coital progression for them.

"Yeah, you've got your right hand… that ought to do it."

"Ha… whaddaya' know – I reckon you liked my right hand just fine darling. I _**know**_ that _**I**_ won't be the one lying awake tonight, thinking of me and you, an' us…. and all the trimmings of an old Southern tuckin' in…"

He stands there at the end of the bed, looking down on her, backlit by the bulb over the sink. _It could have been so easy with them. _It never is.

"Oh that…" she says in a snooty tone that she knows will get to him, will jab straight into that self-doubting core of him. "It was hardly earth shattering!"

"Oh whadn't it now, Ms. cool and composed? Well in that case... Let us remedy that… I bet we can do better if…if only..." He makes to move back towards her on the bed, his hair like a messy rooster's comb, the suddenly determined smirk and the unshaven chin. It has her heart almost flipping outside her ribcage. Shouldn't have challenged him.

"One step closer and there will be blood on this floor tonight buddy," she says as roughly as she can manage, sticking her hand under the pillow. Because fact is, she can think of nothing else. Just the warmth of his mouth on her, the way he just,… just knows how to, how much, how hard, how gently. The cathartic sensation of letting go of everything. Wants him back, in bed next to her_._ "You might remember my sharp friend….?"

"Is that right?" He doesn't smile. Serious now as he rounds the bed. Shoulders put back, aware of how he must look. "You gonna' hurt me Kate?"

And she thinks, _she should make good of her threat. _But she doesn't answer, just fixes him with narrowed eyes. And instead of coming closer he lazily turns around, puts distance between himself and the bed. That arrogant swagger as he crosses the floor. Feet too wide apart, that lazy shuffle he does. Facing her as he reaches the door.

"We gotta' talk Freckles… tomorrow morning." Handle pushed down with a squeek. "I heard what you said to Claire. Everything. You ain't leaving on your own."

He gives her a disdainful glance, all steely blue eyes through that stringy dirt-blonde hair. As if all of this couldn't matter less to him. Her mouth that just hangs open. She doesn't know what to say but he solves it for her.

"You ain't got to do nothing but tell me what I wanna' hear_._ That's the minimum it'll cost ya'... and I reckon it's a hell of a bargain."

And she knows he's right. It seems too good an offer to turn down. Him, sticking by her for a measly few words. But it isn't about that. It's more, so much more. After the words he'd expect more from her. He'd expect her to throw herself into a proper 'relationship'. The word 'relationship' is irrelevant to them. She doesn't think they could do it, or rather – she doesn't think _she _can. _Damaged. _

"What is it you want to hear exactly? That I choose you over Jack?" she throws it out there.

That insecurity about Jack will always be hanging over them – and it's her fault – she knows that. She doesn't think any words would ever be enough for him, doesn't really think he'd ever be satisfied. She'd be endlessly reassuring him, endlessly trying to erase the fact that for a while, there was someone else.

"Yep, that's exactly what I want. I want you. To want. _Me._ Wanna' hear you say it. That's all."

Frustrating that he hasn't understood yet. That it could never work. He'd hate her before the week was over or at least as soon as the novelty of it had worn off. He'd compare her to Juliet and to all the other whole, normal women he's been with. And really she can't. Is unable to say it. Wants him to remain like this, to look at her like this, as if she were worth all this trouble. He'll soon find out that she isn't.

"But, we, it wouldn't…" She says and gets nowhere with what she wants to say.

Can see it clearly, how he'd grow impatient, insecure by her incapability to let him in. How they'd hurt each other. How he'd be unable to handle her darkness, her ugliness.

"I want what I want." He says brusquely and sticks his chin up like a headstrong child.

She retorts with the only defence she's got._ Doesn't do sorry…_

"Told you… as soon as I get that 'sorry'…"

"Tough luck then. Looks like we'll both get fuck all," he says, shrugging casually. She misses him before he's even passed the threshold and wonders what the hell is wrong with her.

* * *

Can't let it go – the fact that she won't give it up. _Won't say it._

He needs to smoke, is exhausted but restless, his legs twitching even as he's making his way out to the porch. His head is a mess. _How fucked up they both are._ It's entirely in order and normal for her to let him go down on her in an old quivering hovel. But anything else, some form of harmony beyond the sexual is an anomalous. They can't be in the same room without screwing everything up, one way or another.

_It'd never work out anyway,_ he tells himself_._

And behind it all, the thought of Danan and Widmore, nagging him. An intangible unease growing within. Should have dealt with that tonight. Not battled about that petty crap with her. It's pointless anyway.

Tomorrow.

_Tomorrow he has to convince them to leave. _She will never let him come with her. He knows that and he hates the little speck of hope poking at him annoyingly saying _'yes she will, yes she will._

The rain shows now sign of stopping, no sign of slowing down. He imagines that the little road down to the village must be a veritable mud bath now. The air around him is almost liquid, making it hard to breathe – he might as well have been drinking it. He swears, it's so humid his hair is almost breaking out in curls. The thunder and flashes have his nerves completely frazzled.

Smoking proves to be an entire project. He has to re-light his cigarette several times. Tries to shield it from the wind with his hand. He stands at the edge of the little porch watching as the lower legs of his jeans turn into a dark blue colour from the splashing rain. He hates thunder. It has always unsettled him.

His shirt beats against him, flaring out in the gusts of wind raging in from the sea.

_Fuck._

He should have forced the Widmore talk on her instead. Should have dealt with her differently. Should have left the other banalities be.

Her in there, probably wrapped up in that crisp white bed sheet like a human spring roll. Can't believe she had let him touch her, after all that has happened with Claire. _It's bizarre and a bit unsettling. _He'd expected that wild, agitated anger from her, had anticipated the violent outburst. After all, that who she is and how she deals. That cruel self-preserving way of hers. Afterwards, she had seemed eerily docile, almost as if he'd fed her a bottle of Valium. He feels the guilt welling up at that. Perhaps it's the shock, perhaps an emotional breakdown. She isn't as tough as she seems. He knows that.

_He's an idiot._

Who cares if she says it? It's idiotic really. It has become a fixation. An obsession of his. _Fuck_, he's never cared about it before, with anyone else. Why the hell should it matter now? It changes nothing.

_Should have stayed._ Should have just taken her as she is. Taken what she offers, the scraps of woman, that pitiful little portion. _Better than nothing_. Should have just whipped away that damn sheet and rolled that prim blue dress off her. Should have teased her underwear down, spread her legs and taken her. But he knows there can't be another way. Won't be the one to be left again. Won't wait for her to pad away from him in the night. Can't deal with that shit again.

_Should have said 'sorry'_.

For everything. For not being who she needs. He isn't sure he could ever be. Because he knows something about her. Something so fundamental it obliterates everything else. He just knows from the way she won't let him in. The total disaster that this woman is.

He knows something about that man that she killed. Her _daddy_.

_**She**__ must have loved him._

The ignition of pure hatred – always love or the loss of it. For someone like _her_, someone who by default runs from her problems rather than deals with them – it must have taken that kind of betrayal to spark enough hatred.

He imagines her, just a skinny little scrap of a girl. Imagines that son of a bitch sweeping into her life, all smoothness and honeyed words. Probably all nice and sweet at the beginning, drawing her in with flattery and attention. _He knows the type._ He's done enough of the foster-home circuit, seen enough suburban homes to know. Has had his fair share of run-ins with them to know their game, the family fathers; perfectly respectable, the perfectly nice average Joes. Gives some kid, starved for affection, a little bit of a call out, makes them feel real special before… _boom_! – In goes the claws and you have nowhere to run. Left feeling that somehow it's all your fault.

_Yeah_, he figures she must have loved that creep. Somewhere along the line he must have drawn her into something that she couldn't get out of. And that makes her what she is today, a shamble, just an illusion of a woman. _Fuck_, he _does_ understand it. Gets why it's so hard for her to let him close. Understands the impossibility of faith. Still, and it sounds naïve as hell;_ all he wants is a chance to prove it to her._ And to himself too.

_That he's nothing like that man. - Nothing_

_Shit. _His cigarette goes out again and as he raffles through his breast pocket for the matches. The bolt of thunder and the spectacular flashes zigzagging across the night sky startle him.

_The soaring pain. _

He is aware of that. But the last thing he notices is the darkness. Swaying through a tunnel of darkness.

And then.

_Nothing._

* * *

He'd left her there. Lying alone on that bed and she'd thought that it's better like that. Less messy, less complicated. He can never be hers to keep. She'd watched the ceiling fan swoosh round and around, it's hypnotic mechanical burring.

At some point she must have fallen asleep. She doesn't know what disrupts it, something entering silently into her sub consciousness. Perhaps it's the cessation of the fan's soothing sound or maybe it's the instant darkness that envelops her. The rain is still coming down hard on the roof, the bolts of thunder, sporadic and deafening. The old house shaking with its rumbling sound. That hasn't changed.

_Something else is different._

She wants to scream, and has to remind herself that it's only the electricity, perhaps a fuse that has blown out. She breathes, concentrates on inhaling and exhaling, trying desperately to stay calm. She can only hear the loud tap of the rain on the roof, on the ground outside, the wind rustling with the palm trees near the house. Her senses heightened by the darkness. He might be scared of thunder but she is even more pathetic the way she grows cold in the dark.

_It's only darkness_.

Not really dangerous. Not in itself. She stands up shakily to find her way out to the living room. Stretching out her hands in front of her like a blind, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other. Can't be alone. In the dark.

Just a power failure.

_He'll have matches, for his smokes. _He'll hold her. Will make the unnamed horror go away. He will.

And in the darkness, she bumps into someone's warm body, someone tall and hard. "Sawyer…" It's him, she soothes herself. _It's him._ Has hardly time to think anything else for the terror that grips her when a rough hand is pushed against her mouth. The other around her. No. No. Can't be. It seems an eternity before her brain has managed to process this information.

The smell – _**not him! **_

_**Someone else. **_Not the sweet smell of tobacco and spices. It's different. The hand across her mouth brings on a full-blown hysteria. Cold sweat breaking through. She thrashes around frenetically, toppling over with her attacker over of her.

_The weight. A man. Not him. No. No. Not this. _

Heavy and suffocating. Her fear so intense she can't even cry out. Just opens her mouth wide in a silent imitation of a scream, the hand wedging itself further in between her teeth and before she can react, can force the nerve endings to make her jaws clinch down around the flesh. Someone cries out, it sounds like it comes from miles away. And she has time to think; _Aaron_.

_A pinch._

A sharp stinging sensation in her right upper arm and she's gone, her mind goes mercifully blank. _She welcomes it_. She disappears, embracing the darkness that envelops her tightly.

* * *

_Please leave a review if you liked it – hope you did even if this was a bit of a dark chapter._


	20. One for another

_Arg… sorry for the delay – work is crazy now…The reviews (thank youthankyouthankyou! They mean the world to me.): a lot of you are not logged on but I really wanted to reply to some of the feedback here…_

_Yema: Sawyer's (somewhat annoying) need to hear the words is about obtaining some sort of commitment from K, once and for all. I see S. as a deeply insecure person, at least with Kate (understandably so since she has always been kind of ambigous)._

_Delamik(logged on, but what the heck, here goes)..: Although S. didn't really tell Claire he also didn't make much of an effort to prop up Kate's story. And yes, Claire actually already knew or suspected, but didn't want to know… Also, personally I was never on board with that whole; K. took Aaron to make up for loosing Sawyer… Think perhaps that she took him because she was fundamentally alone._

_Scotty: mmm, yes the hands.… just mmm… ( and EL is beyond gorgeous, but her paws totally destroyed the whole sex in cage scene for me… : P). Oh and yes, I reckon that Sawyer would have exploded from all the 'giving' ( and NOT receiving) if this was in real life… poor guy. I didn't want to write sex scenes that were pang-boom, get-it-on, perfect kind of bliss stuff… so I hope you forgive me for taking the liberty of creating this aberration of a man who loves to 'give' : )._

_So, I know this has been a long time coming. Didn't realize when I cut the last chapter off at the cliffy that I'd be setting myself up. I am especially nervous about posting this time and it has been rewritten a zillion times already. It worked in my mind but now I'm not so sure… Anyway ( - Javajive closes eyes, holds her breath and jumps off cliff - ) here goes…_

_Rated: Mature for a lot of swearing and some sexual content/references._

_Disclaimer: not mine, none of it._

_

* * *

_

**One for another**

**

* * *

**

_Wet grass and mud. _

_It's dark._ He's dazed and scared stiff. Doesn't know where he is, except that there is grass between his fingers, against his cheek and a light drizzle of rain is falling on his back and on his neck. It's cold and he lies face down on the ground. Doesn't want to get up. Doesn't want to think, wants the comfort of not knowing.

The '_what-where-how'_, it all swivels around, evading him. It's dark and wet and he's on the ground. _That's all he knows._ The elusiveness of it all. The dread of finding out. The knowing that the moment he rises, the moment he gets up, he'll have to face something horrible.

It takes a while for his eyes to adjust and for his brain to catch up.

He's outside the old house, perhaps not far from the porch. He isn't sure whether he's hurt or not, can't quite wrap his mind around it.

He's been stricken over the back of his head. He knows the feeling well, the pounding, hammering kind of headache. It isn't the first time. He reaches up to touch the back of his skull, his finger trawling something wet. _Blood?_ Perhaps, it might well be the rain. He has no idea, and somehow it seems of secondary importance to him.

But there is another sensation that stands out. The sore muscle of his upper arm, a dull pain as if he's been stung. The slow-motion sluggishness of his mind. The feeling of being under water, everything seemingly muffled around him.

God.

_Someone did this. Someone must have doped him up and…_

What?

He crawls up, remains stationary on his knees, the strong urge to vomit. Only dry heaves, nothing comes out. Hands on the ground, muddy grass between his fingers and he grasps at it to stop his world from spinning_. _

Everything is soaking wet. His jeans are heavy and sticky against his skin and his t-shirt plastered to his upper body. Remembers being out smoking and then _nothing_. The faintest, weakest light from a moon beyond the clouds. Turning the pitch black tropical night into a dark suffocating grey. Understands nothing, just knows that he is petrified.

_Kate._

The thought that makes him stand up. - _Kate._

As light-headed and faint as he feels, he clambers up, searching frantically in his jeans pocket for the matches, finds a crumpled sodden box. He strikes a match and holds it up. Can barely see the porch in front of him and has time to make it over there before the match burns out. The wind still strong enough to put a little flame out without much effort. An abstract nightmarish anxiety that grows, expands with each uncoordinated step he takes.

He stumbles barefoot across the yard, the grass cold, slimy and slippery under the soles of his feet. Strikes another match, then another and another until he's reached the house. The glass doors are wide open, one pane broken and he accidentally steps on one of the little chards in the darkness inside. Struggles to brush it off, pulling it with his nails as he hops one-legged into the living room.

_What? What has been taken?_

_Or. Who?_

Fumbling for the brass lantern he knows is on the coffee table, lighting it with trembling fingers. The guilt is there, even before he has understood what has happened. _He did this. _He'd known something was wrong, had known it the very first time he'd laid his eyes on that smarmy asshole. He should have forced them. Forced them to leave.

_If she's gone, if she's not there…_

His chest feels like it's about to explode, her door is ajar as well. Panic distorting the perspective of the room, the wall leaning in over him. His stomach trying to turn inside out. Hurries across the room. The smell of earth, rain and foreboding.

_She must be alright. Must be. Must be. Must be. _

Repeats it like a prayer. Sweat breaking out across his brow and his upper lip, a queasy kind of terror eating at him. _Danan. Widmore. Remote house. _

_Fuck. _

He'd known - and done nothing. Must be fine. _Must be, mustbemustbe…_

The mixture of fear and relief as he finds her, slumped on the floor of the bedroom. Belly down, her bare arms above her head, her hair tangled across her face. Her skirt has been flicked upwards, revealing her plain cotton underwear. Drops down by her side, his knee caps hitting the floor so hard it makes him wince. He places the lantern there next to them so that he can see her, long shadows across her face. Tugs down the skirt of her dress quickly, fingers shaking as he pulls the hair away, tries to turn her face towards him. Has to see her. She has to be okay. _Has to._

_Breathing._

_God... _

And though he doesn't believe in any god, hasn't in a long, long time, he says to who ever the hell is up there: _thank god. Thankgodthankgod._

_His fault._

He'd known and done nothing. _Should have._ Should have forced them all to leave. Should have found a way out immediately. Should have seen this coming. The room is gyrating around him, the mounting panic making him physically sick. His hand on her cheek. A light little slap that makes him flinch.

"Kate, Kate, come on, gotta' wake up…" he says hoarsely.

That sounds that she makes as he places a palm across her forehead, from deep inside, guttural. It scares him more than anything. He looks her over, lifts the lantern up to shed light on her. Tries to find a visible injury, and all the while; the big thick lump in his throat grows larger and larger. Suffocating him.

_Please let her be alright._

His fingers search her skull, fingertips trawling her scalp looking for bumps or cuts, any injury and he finds nothing. Nothing. Does the same with her arms and legs, just runs his hands across them, looking for blood, cuts anything. _But there is nothing_, just smooth warm skin, nothing wrong with her. And that scares him too.

_His fault. He did this. Did nothing. _He flicks her cheek again and again, until she opens one eye. Just barely, before it falls shut again.

"Come on… open your goddamn eyes…" _Needs her with him._

He brushes some remaining strands of her hair out of her face, an excuse to touch her more than anything else. Fingertips following the fine curve of her brow. She struggles, eyelids drooping as she attempts to open them. One hand on her hip and the other on the naked shoulder, he rolls her over on her side. Shakes her gently, wants her to wake up properly. _Can't do this alone. _Another soft slap against her cheek. It's useless. She must be so doped up. _Has to check on the others too, but can't. Can't leave her like this._

"Come on baby, you can do this…" _Don't be a wimp._

Finally manages to keep her eyes open long enough to look up at him, when the door opens inward with a thud and Miles bursts in, dressed in pyjamas and a t-shirt, a torch clasped in his hand, looking wild-eyed and lost.

"They're gone," he says softly, waving so haphazardly with the torch he accidentally shines its sharp light in Sawyers eyes, making him see spots of orange and red.

"What?"

Though the truth is. _He knows._ Feels the guilt multiply, expanding like a festering boil beneath the surface. _He had done nothing._

"Aaron and Claire… gone." Miles' held back agitation clipping the words short. "Fuck. Someone must have just swooped in here and snitched them. How fucked up is that?"

Miles laboured breathing the only thing audible in the room. Sawyer knows what he's doing, trying to gain control over the fear, trying to shake the uncontrollable alarm. He's doing the same thing. Can't let go. Has to keep it together. He keeps rubbing Kates back somewhat roughly to keep her from falling back to sleep.

"Where were you?"

"Well, I was having my nails done James…" he sneers." What do you think? I was sleeping! Must've been jabbed with a big damn needle in my freakin' sleep, put me right out. Some frigging horse tranquillizer 'cause I still feel the house tipping left and right….My whole arm is sore."

"Yeah, I reckon that's what happened to all of us... " Sawyer mumbles, holding her face between his fingers.

"Fuck. Fuck. This is insane. What do we do?" Miles tone drops an octave. It's quiet and restrained like a pressure cooker. "What…Is she…? She alright?"

"Yeah, I think so. Hell, I can't find anything wrong with her…" he feels the perspiration pearling off his brow and upper lip. The nerves getting to him. _**This**_, he's not cut out for this_._ "But she's small, if she got a shot of whatever we got, she'd be a lot worse off."

"Guess so… What do we do now boss?"

Miles standing there, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. And though they're friends and Sawyer genuinely cares for the guy - right now it's too much. He hates how he looks at him, hates the 'boss' that slinks out. As if he's still in charge, as if he's still some quaint D.I security guy who knows jack-shit about what to do.

"We'll try hitchin' a ride at the village, hook up with Hurley back south… " he says it as if he has a plan, as if he's not in a jittery turmoil himself. At least he's god at this; the pretending. Playing cool.

"Yeah…yeah okay…Fuck, who the hell found us here? Who'd just take them like this?"

"Reckon it's your old boss;… Widmore," Sawyer says flippantly as he hauls Kate up, slinging her one arm around his neck and leans down to get the lantern. Miles moves out of his way.

"Yeah,… maybe you're right. The ambush with darts and what nots,.. yeah… but why Claire, and Aaron?... It makes no sense. Why them, why not take the bunch of us?"

"Damned if I know," he says it as if this is nothing to him. No big deal. But it gives him the creeps, all of it. _Widmore._ _Danan._ _Remote house. _Sneak attack, a' la special forces with sedatives. The fucking island.

_Claire and Aaron. _Fuck. It will kill her to loose them.

"How long do you think we've been out?"

"An hour, a couple of hours… How the hell should I know?" he says impatiently as he struggles to find the right balance slugging Kate's weight across the living room, sitting her down on the sofa. Head wilting on the long unsteady neck. He leans her against the backrest.

"Put her on my bed and lets go…" Miles says, and Sawyer can hear the hysteria hovering above him, threatening to pounce. He has no patience with this. His loyalty elsewhere.

"We ain't leaving her," he snaps in a way that doesn't leave room for an argument. "You okay Kate? Come on, we've got to get going."

He bends down at her feet, putting on her sneakers as if she is an invalid. She blinks, her eyelids clipping and he senses a light coming on in there. Miles gets out of his hair for a second. Presumably to get dressed himself.

"Claire?" she breathes and looks him straight in the eyes in a way that makes him want to throw up again. Whatever hit her is wearing off.

"Gone baby. Someone took 'em."

"Them?"

She gets up, faster than he'd thought possible, one hand on his shoulder for support as she heaves herself up. Uncoordinated and obviously still woozy. He watches as she struggles to stay upright, like a newborn giraffe's first staggering steps . She snatches the little lantern off the table, making her way waveringly towards Claire's room.

* * *

Widmore…the island.

_She knows._ Knows before she has kicked the door open.

The one who was here didn't love Aaron. Didn't care that he's favourite blanket is on the floor, a big muddy footprint across the soft lime green fleece. The one who was here didn't care about Claire. Her clothes scattered around the room, her purse upside down by Kate's feet. She lifts it up, her hand feeling for something. Finds their passports there. Aaron's and Claire's. The once they'd had issued at the Australian Consulate-General in LA.

_But __**they**__ are gone. _

And though she thinks the words. Actually spells them out in her mind, she can't understand them. Not really. That someone had forced their way into the house. That someone has gone through the trouble of putting them all out of action. Not killing them, not harming them, just disappearing with two human beings. And she doesn't understand it. Except, she does. It's about the island. _Must be. _They are gone. Their passports are still here.

But she can't take it in. Won't. She keeps it all away. She knows how to steel herself how to construct that barrier to prevent the horrible truth from reaching inside where it can truly do some damage. Pretends it's a movie, happening to someone else. Puts a screen between herself and the world. She's done it before, it's the only way. The only possible way she can walk through the room, pick up Aaron's soiled blankie and not disintegrate completely.

Won't let it inside. She retreats, steps away from feeling anything._ Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. _That's all she's got to do. She's not really here. The blanket. Her only remaining link to him. Tells herself, like so many times before.

_Doesn't hurt if you don't feel anything._

_Keep breathing. _

_It's not real. Can't hurt you if you don't let it._

Won't let it. In.

* * *

He follows her to the doorway of the dark little room. He knows the fighting. Knows the running. He's used to her volatile temper, used to the violence, the way she deals.

_But this._

The Kate he finds sitting there in a pile on the floor, clutching a dirty green baby blanket in her hand - she scares the hell out of him. He wishes he'd never had to see it. Her there, just staring at that scrap of fabric.

The walls that come slamming down around her like guillotines, like some high tech security vault. Her way of surviving, her only other coping mechanism. Pulling back, disappearing into herself. She must have used this before. He imagines this is what she does when there is nowhere to run, no one she can hammer her bone hard little fists into. No matches within reach. _So that's it. That's how it happens. _That's how she's survived all the crap in her life. She's locked herself away in there. _Made herself unreachable. _Hid herself away.

_Shutting down._

Can't do this alone. Can't do this. He goes to her, his hands on her upper arms, wants to shake her, get her off that floor, but instead he grips her gently as he raises her off the floor. Notices that she recoils at his touch. Hisses at him like a cat.

He wonders if this is what it's like to live with her. Would she be like this every time she couldn't run? Trapped in a life with him - is this what she'd resort to? Can't think of it now. Now is not the time to ponder how damaged she is. So he talks to her, manages to coach her off the floor, not sure that she's really hearing him. Miles watching them now, dressed, wearing his shoes and all, almost tapping his foot. Impatient with her. But she's not his.

_He doesn't feel this. _

_Mine. She's mine, _he thinks and it's a fucking weird thing to think right now but that's how it is. Standing there in the meagre light of the lantern, that damn blue dress, wrinkled and crumpled, apathetically holding Aaron's dirty baby blanket. Like a puppy you've kicked one too many times. To frail to get up again, all bark gone.

"Lets go buddy… she'll be alright."

"Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses, we're all coming."

"You sure that's wise, I mean, she'll probably be better off just resting here while we go down."

"She'll be just fine!" he barks with a confidence he doesn't feel. The suffocating burden of his own inadequacy. Would have been great to have the Doc playing hero here right now. He feels everything slipping away, just out of reach. _Can't do this._ Not alone. _Come on Kate, grow a pair_, he thinks. He takes the baby blanket from her and tosses it on the sofa table. Thinks she will freak out completely, but she just stands there passively.

"I still don't get it… how would Widmore find us here? I mean we're at the freaking end of the world… at the edge of civilization and.."

"Danan," Sawyer cuts him off. Miles shakes his head with a sad half smile.

"Danan! Yeah right!" Miles certainty deeply disturbing and at the same time comforting. They don't believe him now, when Aaron and Claire are already gone. They wouldn't have believed him last night either. "Nope, I don't buy it Boss, what'd he do with a chick and a baby?"

Watches Kate's face for a reaction. Any reaction. But there is none. She's staring out into nothing, like she's not even there. Probably isn't either.

Wants her angry instead. Furious. _Present._

"You don't have to buy it buddy. But, tell you what; my super-sleuth has evidence that these yahoos know each other."

"What frigging super sleuth?" Miles says sceptically, holding up the door as they all make their way outside, Sawyer with his arm around Kate's waist, broken glass crunching under the soles of their shoes.

"Name's Henry, does some stuff for Hurley and some snooping on the side for _me_…"

"Henry? My cousin Henry? Sloppy, crater faced guy, hasn't seen an iron in decades?"

"Yeah… yeah that sounds 'bout right. Clever fellow, your cousin."

"Danan with Widmore, that's just freaking ridiculous!"

"Yeah, ain't it just… But your swanky pal has received a whole lot of money from Widmore and Claire and her little thug is missing. Just connecting the dots is all…"

"Shit… so you found this out _when_ exactly?"

"Yesterday, called him from the hotel… and got a little status report."

That twitch at the corner of her mouth and he knows she is at least hearing some of it. The emotionless stoicism of her drives him crazy. If there were ever a time to panic, well, here it is. _Go ahead baby, knock yourself out._ She brushes off his arm around her. _Typical._

That damned stubborn independence of hers. Even now.

"When were you planning on telling the rest of us about this big fat conspiracy?" Miles voice has a metallic tinge to it that Sawyer doesn't recognize. At this, Kate actually looks at him and he thinks to his great relief that maybe she's _back_. Maybe she is coming back to herself.

"Look, I'm telling you _now_," he mutters and he knows it's not enough. Not nearly. He'd slipped, lost the grip of something important. It seems impossible to him now, how he could have gone to bed like nothing last night, how he could have been so careless, so stupid. _His fault. _His fault. He's expecting her to lash out too, she has all the right to. And she's listening now, he's certain. But her eyes are on her feet as she shuffles on ahead.

"I could kill you." Miles black eyes above the large old flashlight he's holding onto. "I would, if I thought I stood half a chance…"

He says nothing. There is nothing to say. Part of him wishes that Miles would have punched him, picked a big old fashioned fist fight with him. Let it all out, pound away at the guilt. But Miles just shrugs, looks defeated and tired as he leads the way.

* * *

The old Vespa is smashed to bits and it pains him for some stupid reason. It's not like it was his anyway. And it makes him think that whoever was here isn't that smart. It's not like they would have gotten far on that old thing anyway, and certainly not all three of them. Not much left in the tank either.

They set off by foot towards the village, not bringing anything with them except for their lanterns and the clothes they are wearing.

_And hell if it doesn't start raining again. _

It is ridiculous. Dense large drops hitting them hard, like someone is standing there above them pouring bucket after bucket straight over their heads. Streaming down the back of their necks, a steady gush against their faces, they can hardly see anything. They walk, Miles faster than both of them swinging his torch, half running down the slippery muddy road towards the village. Sawyer carries the lantern. Its light is scanty and hardly enough. Kate slips first in the darkness. She clambers up, refusing his stretched out hand. Her dress drenched, muddy up to her waist as are his clothes, the bottom of his jeans dragging in the red liquid earth. He falls too but she doesn't even pretend to want to help him.

_His fault. His fault._ His pulse beats steadily as they hurry on. Should have just dragged them all away last night. They could have walked for god's sake.

They reach the village and try several of the doors to the compounds, knock loudly, using the round metal handles on the wooden carved portals, but no one opens or replies. Proof that these villagers are sane and sound. Smart enough not to let in strangers in the dark hour of the morning. The miserable riff raff that their little group consists of; a man who talks dead people, an escaped murderer and a conman.

"Let's just go back, this is useless. We'll just have to wait until the morning," he says, his heart sinking at the thought of going back up there again.

Miles doesn't reply, just walks ahead of them, as if he's had it with this farce. Sawyer watches in front of him as the light from Miles' torch is getting smaller and smaller.

Kate is slowing him down. She slips and slips again on the mud. Her sneakers so dirty they are dark instead of their original white colour. At least as far as he can see. _She says nothing. _Just the nerve-wrecking slurping sound of her shoes sticking to the mud and then releasing with every step.

The rain hitting him hard across the forehead, he has to wipe the water away regularly to be able to see anything at all. He glides sideways and saves himself barely from the humiliation of falling on his ass in the muddy darkness.

_Then suddenly. Out of the blue._

"The passports…." Her small sad voice, the unexpected sound of it stuns him. He has to strain to make out the words above the rain and the slop-slop of their shoes in the mud and he isn't following. Wasn't expecting her to speak and wasn't expecting those words either. He's still waiting for her knuckles and her fury to sweep over him but this – the quietly spoken words. The softness of her voice. No, he wasn't expecting it.

* * *

Walking behind him, sliding forward in the narrow light from his lantern, watching the shadows play on the back of his drenched t-shirt. She had thought it out loud, hadn't really meant to speak.

He spins around to look at her, still walking on, very slowly, half turned backwards. She half hopes he'll loose his footing and fall. Knows it's mean but she doesn't want him looking at her like that. Wants to punish him, wants to hold him responsible. Only. _She can't._ This is all on her.

"What? Whadidya' say?" No _honey_, or _baby_ or _freckles_. Not the time for the endearments. His hair so wet it lies slicked across his skull, a few stringy dripping strands sticking to his cheeks.

"The passports, they left them behind…"

All on her. Her pathetic neediness led to this. _Danan._ She'd let him right in, welcomed him in with open arms, served Claire and Aaron up on a neat little dish. She should have been alone.

_Everything she touches turns to shit._

"So...? Maybe they ain't going anywhere far."

_The island. _ He's taking them back to the island. That's the only thing that makes sense. Why else would he take them? Widmore. He has his own freighter for god's sake. _Widmore and Danan, The names, belonging in different worlds, still._ A connection. And she'd just been a pawn in a larger plan. _So stupid._

"No. They are already far gone." she says. She just knows it. _Wants him to refute the idea, to tell her it's ridiculous._

"Yeah," he just says, as if they're talking about the weather. "You're probably right."

The worst thing of all. _He _had been right all along. _About Danan._ She had been conned, he'd had her right from the start.

She had met him at the Emporium, at the inauguration party. Had been immediately stricken by his exotic beauty, standing there alone in the grand entrance with a wine glass held by the stem. A strangely timeless figure among the high society invitees. His cream linen suit and that rich brown hair swept back from his forehead, as if from a bygone era. He'd looked up at her, met her eyes as if he could feel being watched. _Those golden eyes._

They'd made fast friends, an undeniable spark, a connection and – perhaps kinship. He 'd never probed, took her a face value. Kate, not a person to trust easily – and that's an understatement too- had found it easy with him- inexplicably easy to let go. And she had trusted him, more than she'd trusted anyone in the longest time. Had let him just prance straight into her life, just because she was lonely and needed someone. His effortless company, she had been sucked in by his easy friendship, the undemanding companionship he'd offered. Countless the nights they'd lied there in her room, laughing, giggling over each other like teenagers, smoking and talking and talking.

She had loved that. Had loved the fact that there was no romantic interest, zero possibility for complications. Just to know that he was there for her friendship, not after anything else. She hadn't had that in the longest time, perhaps ever. Had loved mirroring herself in his eyes, as someone you goofed around with, gossiped all night with, smoked in bed with. _Someone normal_. Not someone who'd blown her own father to hell's end, not a murderer, and not the unloved fugitive betrayed by her own mother. It had been so easy. These months in Bali, living together _like a family, _having friends_. Not running. _It had been more than she'd ever dared to dream of. And it's over. Lost Gone. All because of her.

_It's not real. Can't hurt you if you don't let it._

The hatred she feels for herself, acid and corroding everything else. Not directed at Danan, but inwards. For letting him and his easy friendship in. _The trust_, an unforgivable kind of stupidity. It has cost her Aaron.

_It has cost her everything. _

Sawyer in front of her, feet planted wide, tall and large in every sense of the word. Like none of the men she's had before. _Nothing easy about him. _And though she isn't the woman for him, and though she isn't someone who could ever be enough for him, she knows that he cares for her. He's never done anything to deliberately hurt her._ Wishes she could let him in. _But it's just unthinkable. He wouldn't want this. What would he do with her? She's just empty, ugly. _Nothing._

"If something happens to them… I don't… I can't," she can't even say it. Can hardly think the thought.

_Everything she touches turns to shit. _He was right about that. _Everything. _

He holds up the lantern so that she can clearly make out his expression. Something that looks like pity on his face and she instantly wants to hurt him. Hates that he looks at her like that. Wants to turn the current of hatred outwards, wants to direct it at him.

"Nothing is gonna' happen. If these bozos had wanted to hurt anyone, ain't no reason to leave the three of us alive." That certainty of his. It's what she needs to hear, wants to hear, still it doesn't make any difference. All she can think of is the absolute, abysmal terror Claire must have felt. Snatched away in the middle of the night. The only hope worth clinging to is that they were taken together, and that they are together, _mother and son. _

"So, what are you waiting for?"

She's glad Miles went ahead of them, wouldn't want him here now. This is all her fault, her fault for bringing Danan into their life. A completely unnecessary addition to their little nuclear unit. Just because she didn't want to be alone. Just because Claire had Aaron. Just because of that closed door at night, imagining Claire lulling him to sleep behind it. Just because she'd needed someone.

"Nothing Kate. Nothing at all." He is cool and standoffish. Water running down his face, dripping off his nose, down the corner of his mouth and chin and he catches some with his tongue.

And Sawyer here, too close, too near her pain. She can't deal with him – doesn't want him to see this. Doesn't know what to do with him. Can't even let her anger go out over him, because fact is; _she did this_. She'd allowed a stranger to get close, put them all in a vulnerable position. He'd warned her. He'd looked out for them and she hadn't wanted to listen. Some stupid pride. Hadn't trusted him.

"Aren't you gonna' say your '_I told you so'_?" she ejects. Her voice is shrill and unpleasant. _Hates who she is. _The discomfort of being stuck inside of this person.

"Wadn't planning on it," he says gruffly but there is a sweetness there that jolts her.

"I just left the door wide open for him. Here you are! Welcome! Please take Claire and…" Aaron's name she swallows, can't say it out loud without dying inside. _Can't. " I should have…."_

"Yeah, well, it's too damn late now anyhows."

She knows he means it as a way of smoothening everything over but it has the exact opposite effect on her. And she hates that he doesn't pick up the challenge she's thrown out there. Hates that he takes the higher road, that he doesn't grasp the opportunity to rub it in. Wants him down there with her, wants someone to be angry at, someone to take it out on.

He's got his forehead in those folds, the ones that tell her she's one pathetic piece of work. Just as well. Last night; his unexpected gentleness in spite of her meltdown. The generosity of him, giving everything in exchange for nothing. Lying there with him afterwards, with the rain and thunder, the warmth of his body next to her, she'd been so close. The temptation so great, to just throw herself into it, forget everything else and give herself up. But this,_ Danan_, it's further proof to her that she should be with no one, _she can have no one_. A harsh reminder from the universe that she only brings misery to the people around her. _To those she loves._

He'll only end up hating her. He'll follow her around for a while, on the run, let the passion run it's course. Suck the attraction between them dry. Live out of a knapsack until he'd get bored. _She knows him_. Better than herself. Knows he'll forever be that little boy looking for his family. He'll play all aloof and tough, as if he doesn't need anyone. But she saw it, saw him with Juliet, that fragile happiness. A home, a family; that's all he wants. And he'd never have that with her.

"You're right, it's too late," she says. Hardening herself against the impulse to cry.

_Aaron._ Can't think of him without being assaulted by memories of the way he smells after his bath, like vanilla and milk, powdery baby fragrance. The wisps of blond hair on his head. _Not hers. _Not hers in the first place.

_It's not real. Isn't really happening._

She'd not taken him to replace Sawyer, Cassidy was wrong about that. Truth be told, she hadn't thought that far. She had slipped into motherhood, it had been an impulse, an instinct and during that boat trip before they were picked up - she had metamorphosed. An attachment had developed, and she hadn't anticipated it. The strength of it, the sticky, warm power of it. Impossible to free herself from. She'd known it wasn't in Aaron's best interest to remain with her. She had clung to him anyway, impossible to hand him over to someone else, anyone else.

"It'll be alright Kate…" he lies, the melancholy of wanting to believe him. "Come here."

Nothing will ever be _alright _with her. Nothing.

And she can't. Can't receive his comfort now. She won't survive it. She makes a move to the left and he counters. She tries the other side, he blocks her there too. That infuriating compassion shining through and she hates it. Doesn't want to be that person, the one that gets by on people's kindness. She won't let him touch her now. She is too fractured, hangs together by too frail a thread. An embrace, any human warmth would shatter her now. Suffocating at the thought of him comforting her.

She tries to duck, get by him, sneak under his arm. But he catches her, turning his head so fast, his hair whips across his face, bringing her back as she where. Two frustrated hands in a hard grip around her wet upper arms. _And thank god for that_, anything more tender and she'd have disintegrated, fallen apart completely. The rain makes it hard to hold onto her. Everything is slippery and fluid. Nothing solid around here.

"No, it won't be. It won't be alright," she says, feeling her throat tightened at the words, water streaming down her face, her back, between her shoulder-blades, floods of it.

"Cut it out Freckles. Now ain't the time for hysterics," he says brusquely and releases her immediately, turning quickly before she has time to say anything else, walking hastily now. So fast in fact, she struggles to keep up. She slides and catches her fall with one knee and he glances backwards in time to see how she pushes herself up from the ground.

She'd thought it hard loosing the little boy the first time around. It had been. _Unimaginably hard_. Hard is not even the word. She can't think of anything that appropriately would describe it. A pain that had left her gasping for air, had driven her straight into Jack's bed, just because she couldn't stand being alone with it. Now this. Bereft, naked and destitute. Doesn't want his comfort. She doesn't deserve him. Deserves nothing.

She hadn't known back then. Hadn't understood.

Had thought, _no_; hoped that Jack was _the one_, the antithesis to Wayne, had thought he was one of the Sam Austens in the world. She'd been so wrong, just like she's been so incredibly off the chart, wrong about Danan. The drinking and the drugs. Jack turning into the very thing she was trying to avoid. _Can never trust her instincts again._

This dry mouthed yearning for him. His broad back and sloping shoulders in front of her. The shape of his skull visible beneath the slicked wet hair. There isn't a single thing to cling onto. Can't cling to _him _either. Just can't allow herself to. The man he is. Someone who's infinitely better off without her. Should be with someone else.

She had _wanted_ to feel like that about Jack, had willed herself, almost made herself believe in it too. Had thought that she would, and even though she'd delighted in the apparent normalcy of their little improvised family unit, at night she'd lie there in their big fancy king-sized bed next to Jack and the vision of _him_ would come to her. Beautiful sly grin and long, lean fingers. Sometimes she'd even go as far as imagining a blond shaggy head above her instead of his dark one. Would close her eyes and see _him _looking slightly dumb, open mouthed and sleepy eyed as he came. Would picture the way he'd lie in his tent, those ugly glasses balanced on the ridge of his nose, the way he'd lower the book and take them off at the sight of her. The way he'd smell and taste, of tobacco and salt and something uniquely his. Something heady that always made her loose her train of thought.

And, he's here now. Walking there ahead of her. He's followed her across the world, tracked her down here. Watching his swagger in front of her. How many times did she dream of him, of being this close to him during those three long years apart? And now when he's here, so near, she can just take a few steps forward and touch him, she doesn't know what to do with him. With her own feelings. She wants to hate him, wants to be angry at him but finds that she can't. _Can't hate anyone but herself._

_Aaron gone, because of her. _It has happened. It is real. And _nothing_ can change that.

_

* * *

_

They arrive back at the house. He takes the lawn in long strides, walks hurriedly ahead of her. The rain whipping against him. Feeling like shit. Panic and guilt and he can hardly breathe. Opens the door and holds it up while waiting for her. He watches as she emerges through the darkness. And she looks so fucking miserable. Drenched and wet as if the whole girl is a piece of melting sugar. He has no idea what to do with her. Quickly hooks his lantern on the door handle and meets her half way. On an impulse, hugs her hard, and she is rigid against him, she doesn't give anything back. Arms hanging at her sides in his clumsy embrace. A pool of water forming around their feet from their clothes.

"Let go of me." Her voice giving him frost bites. Wants that yielding warm girl. Wants to hear that it's okay, that they will be alright. That she doesn't hate him.

"We'll find them, we'll get them back..." He rubs her along the tense spine through the soaking wet dress. Beneath the cold fabric he can feel her body extruding heat and hell, he can't do anything about it. The rich smell of earth and rain. The arousal that just comes out of nowhere.

Looks down at her lips, red and sumptuous, that full, joker-like mouth she's got. Green eyes dark and narrowed, suspicious. The way the sodden, slinky blue fabric sticks to her breasts like a second skin and he can't believe he can be so turned on by such a wreck of a girl. And under these circumstances. It must say something about him, _and surely it ain't good._

She tries to push him away, a one-handed half-hearted push. But he can't let go. It's as if he's arms are locked around her. Stomach against stomach. Her leaning backwards, joined only by the hips and his one-sided embrace. The desperation, the irrational fear that if he lets go, he'll never have another chance. The beauty of her in spite of all the glaring flaws. He shouldn't feel like this. Should love someone else.

Her eyes are black and livid, all pupils no colour left. The light from beneath her, casting threatening shadows on her face. and he thinks she'll fight him off. Then before he has understood what has happened it all drains away. Tense shoulders slumping, face slackening.

"I'm so tired," she whispers, wiping her palm across her face from forehead to chin, stopping there with it clasped against her mouth as if she's just woken up. He reaches forward, hooking his fingers under the strap of her dress that has fallen down and tugs it up on her shoulder again. Can't resist a swift backhanded caress across her cheek.

"Come on. Let's catch us some sleep before morning..."

She obeys. Walks in as if in a trance and to his great astonishment disappears into Miles' room. Doesn't come out again. When he sneaks a peak through the little gap in the door he sees her curled up at the foot end of Miles' bed like a little wet dog. Still in the same dress, muddy sneakers and all.

"This is your mess. _You_ deal with it," Miles tired voice from the head of the bed.

He fetches one of the towels off the rack in the bathroom, a large blue one, for the beach and tries to scoop her off the bed while wrapping it around her. Hustles her out of Miles' room, ushering her ahead towards the sofa. She's sleepy, docile like a little lamb. It drives him nuts.

Kneels down and wedges her out of the muddy shoes, a repetition of last night, only different. _It's all different now_. Her naked legs are speckled with the red mud and he wipes at it uselessly. She needs a bath and he's a big fucking idiot. He could have done something, _should have made them all leave_. The guilt like a lead weight at the pit of his stomach, bringing him down. Drowning him.

She's _his_. _His mess._

"Raise your arms!" he says gruffly. She's dog-tired and he just wants to... _Fuck_, he just wants to take care of her. Always does.

_You're mine. Mine._

Red mud everywhere. It looks like she's been through a massacre. He yanks off her dress, tangling it in her arms and hair. He's sure he's hurts her a little. But he can't stop and think now. Can't look at her in those clingy white underwear against her belly in the warm glow of the lantern. The high girlish fullness of her pale breasts, the perfect pink peeping through the wet strands of hair. Can't even glance at the soft valley, that slight indentation that runs from between her ribs down to her funny little rounded stomach. Fastens his eyes on her feet, the flecks and smears of mud on her ankles. Wraps the towel around her without looking at her again and rubs her with it. Trying desperately to make it better, trying not to think of the smoothness of her skin underneath. She's cold and tired and not herself and he is an asshole for even thinking like that.

_He's only human goddamnit._

He digs in his old duffel bag by the sofa and hands her his pale blue shirt, the one that is a little frayed around the collar. She makes no sign of taking it, just stands there with the towel around her shoulders, not caring that it's gaping at the front. The sight of her bellybutton in the shadow between the edges. Eyelids heavy and her expression, as if she's retreated into herself again. He couldn't take it if she did.

"Christ Kate! You could do something yourself dontcha' think?…" he sneers because it hurts to see her like this and to know that there was a way to avoid all this and he didn't take it. Did nothing. _She is his. His mess._

He pulls the towel off her and lets it fall to the floor, his eyes floating, flittering, trying not to stop and stare. Can't help it. The beauty of her. Inexplicable. Same as all the other women, nothing special about her. Still nothing compares to _this_. The view of the soft rounds of her breasts and the sweet candy pink of her nipples, making him crumble. He's seen so many women in his life. He can't even begin to count the number of boobs that he has held in his hands. But _hers_,… just because they are hers. The innocence of them, small but full, timid but boastful, all at the same time. The little pointed tips that just look like they were made for him.

Hastily guides her arms into the sleeves of his shirt, too long. He folds them once, twice. Tries to avoid touching her skin as he does. Buttons the shirt, starting with the top button, has gotten to the second when he notices that she is actually crying. A frighteningly silent kind of crying that freaks him out. His fingers shake when he continues down, third button, fourth. Shit, that ought to do it.

_What is it about seeing her in his clothes?_

The shirt that reaches her mid thigh. Her head hangs forward, sad chin pointing south. The motionless, mute crying, and he just wants it all to stop. He knows her underwear must be wet too, but he can't change them for her. Not with her crying like that and him; _just wanting her_. It wouldn't be right. Digs up a pair of clean boxes, stretches them towards her and she doesn't take them. Just crawls up on the sofa like an injured animal, curling right up in her hard little sleeping position. All the sadness in this room. _It's too much._

"Suit yourself" he says and takes her discarded towel, wrapping it around his midriff. He rids himself of his own muddy, clingy wet jeans and flings his shirt on the floor. Pulls on the boxers he'd intended for her and a clean t-shirt before he joins her there, face to face. An awkward, tight fit, his ass almost hanging off the sofa's edge. But to sleep anywhere else right now.

_Unthinkable._

He's heart almost makes a somersault when she suddenly hooks one thigh over his hip. The desire rushing forward, burning, imperative._ Unexpected_

He wants to stop her, but finds that he doesn't have the strength, the willpower to do anything about it. And just like that, she lifts herself up above him. Leans down, nose to nose. Hers is small and freckled, he knows that though he can't see it now, with her rubbing it against his face. Like an animal, trying to show her affection, her skin clammy and he doesn't know if it's from the tears or the rain. Her eyelashes tickling him, that perverted sense of sorrow that she brings. Her fingers behind his ears, butterfly flutter and it makes him squirm under her.

"What's this?" he rasps against her when she brings her mouth near his. Doesn't kiss her back. The guilt and the yearning, the strangest bed fellows, a stifling combination. He wonders if this is part of her allure, that stormy, excessive way she's got. The fascinating pendulum between reason and emotion, never in balance.

"Nothing…" she says and nips at his upper lip. Just a tad too hard, to punish him, for asking questions. That hunger for conflict because that's what she knows best, perhaps the only thing she knows. _That's how fucked-up she is. _Her hands gliding in under his t-shirt and trying to get closer yet. The wetness of her underwear making his boxers damp too. He feels himself swell against her immediately and _fuck,_ he can't help it. The earth and the rain, and this woman.

"_Hell_ no Freckles, not now," he says but he doesn't mean it. Wants her. _Now. _An emotional blow out after all that has happened. The craving for her, comforting in its familiarity. At least this they know, everything else falling apart around them, between them. And he just wants to cry too at the feeling of her lips against his, teasing them open with the tip of her tongue. Her skin, her limbs, encircling him, struggling to get close enough. "No, not like this... this ain't.."

But her mouth, the way she kisses, her fingers on the back of his neck. _How can he refuse?_

"I hate you," she breathes. Her lips, smooth, sugar plum sweet like against the crook of his mouth, a screwed-up love declaration of sorts. And he knows it isn't true. They both know that it isn't.

"You don't hate me," he whispers against her, as juvenile and childish as she is. Flinching as her hand skates down to the elastic of his boxers, her fingers, the palm of her hand. _And hell._ His crushing weakness for her. That's all it takes to detonate his frail resolve. He gives up on everything, the words, the need for her to take a stance. It doesn't matter anymore. After tonight it doesn't matter, _nothing matters_. The only thing of significance is this, the sliding together, fast and dangerous and greedy. An avalanche that he is powerless to stop, can only watch as logic and good sense go up in smoke around him.

"Come," she says as if they are on their way somewhere. As if she's inviting him somewhere. And he thinks she might be crying, isn't sure.

Doesn't want to know.

Her hands everywhere, mirroring his. Fingertips sweeping across his skin, his arms, his face, burrowing into his hair. Imperfect and rushed as if she doesn't have much time. And the tricks of his trade fly out the window. He remembers nothing. Has forgotten everything. All of the smooth techniques honed for years with woman after woman after woman. Her lips, her lips and the earthy taste of her. This is a crude version of him, one that hasn't got time to stop and think. Has no patience, no elegance, no sophistication, just the desperation to feel her, as much of her as possible against his skin.

"I'm right here… ain't going nowhere…"

The sensuality of her; unguarded impulsive, violent. Dark sodden hair sweeping across his chest, against his face. _The rain and the sorrow._ Nose clashing against nose, his forehead knocking against her, teeth and nails, hardness of bones and awkward, angular movements. Groping, grasping, gasping, trying to get closer. _Him_, fumbling with the little buttons of her shirt, his hands large and ungraceful - useless. Gives up, just shoves the fabric upwards. Needs her skin against his hands.

"You…" she mumbles and the cupid's bow of her mouth pouts ever so slightly under his lips.

"_Sch_… I know…" he hushes her. Doesn't want to talk now. Can't talk now.

Making out like breathless, inexperienced teenagers, nothing to guide them but the overwhelming urge to be close to one another. She almost knees him in the crotch and he winces but can't let go. His hands skimming down her waist, her hips, her buttocks. She moves against him clumsily, and it's as sensual as having your nose rubbed against a boxing glove and still. _God._ It doesn't matter. His hardness in the warmth of the shallow hollow between her legs, can't keep together much longer. The pulsating mania that makes him loose himself. The sad desperation of the two of them. _The hopelessness of them._

"We can't…it, we... won't work…" gasping but with a whiff of reason in her voice and he won't take it in.

"I know…" he murmurs. "I know… Come. Closer."

But there is no physical way for them to get as close as he needs. Unattainable.

The way they don't fit together. Uncoordinated, inept as if they've never done this before. Elbows poking into ribs, limbs twisted and bent at impossible angles on the narrow stretch of sofa. Shirts carelessly pushed up, no time to take them off. There is no space to think. No sly pretence, no expertise, no sophistication. Only the sublime sensation of her skin against his, and the promise of her heat against him. Her lips and his, as they should be.

_Needs to._ Needs to be inside of her, now. Wants so much_, too much_. Wants to slide down between her legs, wants to taste her, warm her up. Lick away the pain. His hands that grapple to pull down her underwear, impossible like this. Her fingers raking through his hair, trying to hold onto his head as if he's about to disappear. They twist, struggle for the top position, mouths never leaving each other. Him breathing into her. _Needs. Her._

_Can't stop to think now. Can't stop._

And then, with a loud reverberating sound, they tumble off the sofa together, the little sofa table toppling over, slamming against the floor. He hits his head against it and is pretty sure she hit hers on the tile, landing there underneath him, legs wrapped around his waist. Something else falls off the table with a clang and seconds later, before they have time to disentangle themselves, Miles' door shoots open.

He stops for an instant, looking sleepy and disoriented, just staring at them, taking in the scene of the two of them on the floor, wedged between the sofa and the little rickety table. As if he's been through all of this before. A stupid dejavu.

"Shit," he says visibly exhaling. "I thought they were back…"

Sawyer lowers his forehead onto Kate's. Wants to shield her. Feels her heart beat faster than a freight train beneath him. Thighs clenched hard around his hips.

"Well you were wrong. Now scoot buddy… "

"Yeah, right… I get it. " he says dryly as his shocked expression is exchanged for one of disbelief at the view of them together like that on the living room floor. "Claire was just abducted and you two are _making out_? Nice one, Jimbo."

Miles slams his door shut and leaves them to their shame. The rude awakening from the heat. He gets up, stretches out a hand to help her off the floor but predictably she ignores it. And for an awkward moment they remain like that, standing silently in front of each other, both correcting their underwear, straightening up things that had already begun to migrate. Not knowing what to do with themselves.

"Let's just sleep," he says grumpily. Reeling from the cold shower of Miles' interruption, trying to calm his racing heart and willing his dick to follow suit. Tugging his t-shirt down over his belly, outside his boxers. An annoying, vexing desire still pulsing through him. Not easy to push away.

"That's was the plan before you attacked me." She says snippily as she buttons up her shirt, _his goddamn shirt, _and tugs it down over her hips too.

"Oh, I _attacked_ you did I? Seem to remember someone jumping my bones as usual but must just be my mind playing tricks as always, that it Freckles?" He wants to laugh at her. The way they go around in circles, over and over again. Never getting anywhere. They've been here before, so many times. But she's so close to tears, and he can't stand anymore of those so he shuts his big mouth. Decides that he has caused her enough grief.

"Yes that's exactly it," she says like a sulking kid and lies down stiffly on her former spot on the sofa. He raises the table up on its legs and joins her there. _Back to square one._

Tomorrow, he knows what will happen. She will go on a wild goose chase after Claire and that little kid. There is nothing he can do about it. _Nothing he can do about her._

He'd come here, acted on an impulse. Not really sure why, or what he was looking for. And that might be a lie. Because he's always known that he wants her. In every fucked-up, screwed-up, messed-up way there is. He has tried, god knows he has tried to let it go, but he's never truly been able to.

_For her to want him back._

And though it's not a sexual surrender that he's after, the visualization of this complete capitulation _is_. He has an image of it in his head, etched into his mind. A stupid dream of her that will never materialize.

Her in a completely unabashed nudity on a bed. Arms recklessly thrown above her head, Baring the fine, sensitive skin of the inside of her wrists, paler than the rest of her. Her face; lazily content – one of those goofy smiles plastered across it showing off her slightly too large teeth. Breasts, small and full, floating to her sides, her chest girlishly flat, lying on her back like that. Slim, cream coloured legs parted wide for him, just for him. And not a shred of shame, confident of her absolute beauty. Those green eyes, looking at him. Only him. Opening herself to him.

It's a fairytale, he knows that. It's more than a fantasy – it's a mirage. Something he stumbles aimlessly towards while it continues to dodge him, slip away between his fingers.

He lies there, face inches away from hers, wet hair soaking the cushions. Her face closed and distant, cheeks rounded and sweet. Those lips, slightly swollen from the rough make out session, suddenly off limit again. The larger of the lantern stands on the table in front of them, casting a dreamy orange sheen over the two of them. But there is nothing romantic about how fucked-up they are. It's just pathetic and sad and pointless. Still his hand finds her cheek and he caresses her sleepily, with the back of his fingers, as if she were a little child. The faintest memory of a hand that smelled of soap, stroking his own cheek like that –a million years ago. More a sensation than an actual memory, the sense of safety intrinsically linked to that hand. She lets him, doesn't bat him away now. That fragrance of rain and grief on her. _On both of them._

The exhaustion gets the upper hand, _dawn is near_. He feels her softening next to him and he dares to let go himself. He's almost gone, almost asleep when he feels her finger touching his lips. As if smoothing away a kiss.

"I…" she says softly and he holds his breath, tries to keep his closed eyelids from twitching. ".... James."

The way she says his name. The way it implodes on him. Slowly at first, beginning with the sweetness of the '_J'_ in her mouth. Gaining momentum at the softness of the vowels; falling like domino bricks, one after another. Separated only by the temptation of the _'m'_. And what really gets to him; the hidden lisp of the _'s'_ as if she's suddenly shy and wants to take it back.

_The way you'd say a loved one's name._

He pretends to stay asleep. But inside that little foolish hope awakens, the one he wants to bash over the head with a baseball bat. The rain has stopped, the crickets are noisy outside, and frogs serenade each other, relishing in the bounty of water. There is a cool breeze blowing through the broken door pane.

Sleep comes surprisingly quickly after that, lulled by the echo of her voice, the sweetness of his name from her lips. The exhaustion of emotional turmoil taking over.

* * *

He awakens to a timid morning sun barely raising it's shy face on the horizon, bashful tangerine rays sneaking through the living room windows. The sky veiled in coral and lilac, the first beams of sun breaking through the light rain.

She's so close. And he feels strangely peaceful lying there in the aftermath of their tragedy, watching her face tinted pink by the morning sun. The love for her in that moment. It makes him doubt his own sanity. _It makes no sense._ As if she hears his thoughts, a flutter of the eyelids and she is looking at him. An immediate focus, the green lighter today, not as painful to watch. Still it wrecks havoc inside of him.

"Morning…" she says.

"Morning Shortcake," he says because the alternative is impossible to say. Impossible to get out today. He swallows hard. His hand wedged beneath his cheek as he lies there on the uncomfortable sofa, face to face with her. There is no going back now. Can't loose her. Can't leave her. _He's stuck. She's his. His mess._

It's a split decision.

And without uttering a sound, he mouths the words to her, so clearly, there is no way she won't understand. Because there are no other words.

Three. _Those are the ones._ Too large, too lumbering, too painful to be said out aloud. Too hard.

_- I – am - sorry. -_

He can see the effect of them, sinking in, silent, unspoken, like footsteps in the sand. Three short leaps, one after another. The shadow invading her eyes. And he thinks, _it shouldn't be this hard_.

But then - she nods. Just a curt little nod, that's all, her head still on the cushion. A swift acknowledgment.

_Almost an absolution. _

In spite of everything. In spite of the sadness, the loss, she's still here. And something has changed. He doesn't understand it but he won't question it. The way she's looking at him now, it's different. He doesn't know what it is but he feels it – _as if he's almost in._ As if somehow, sometime during this awful night, instead of breaking apart, instead of shoving him away. She has opened herself. Unexpectedly wedged her heavy door open, just a hint. There is no welcome mat, no banners or balloons but there is an opening, ever so small. He can see the light streaming out through it.

_For him. _

And he realizes that she wasn't waiting for a 'sorry', wasn't hoping for one. Somehow the mute apology absolves him of whatever obstacles there were. The luminosity of her, he doesn't understand it. She shines as she lies there, looking almost tranquil. Meeting his eyes as if she trusts him. As if _he_ is what she wants. And he believes in it now, can't question this.

This, what they have. So immensely fragile and vulnerable. Rickety like driving a couple poles of slim bamboo sticks in the sand and constructing a huge troublesome villa on top of it. One sneeze or a careless movement and it all comes tumbling down.

_Imperfect._

_Him and her. _So small, so insignificant, so breakable. He finds her hand there in between them, entwines his fingers with hers. Her funny, slightly stubby fingers that rhyme so badly with the slight build of the rest of her. Pale and small and short, entangled in between his bronzed longer fingers. And she lets him. Marvelling at the fact that after all of this, she's lying here. _With him. _The tips of her fingers following the ridges of his hand, not letting go of him, gaze steady, not leaving his face. The warmth of her acceptance, of her forgiveness. Of her surrender.

None of them especially comfortable like, their limbs and stiff and sore. But he doesn't want to move. Can't now. Doesn't want to give this up, the tiny little piece of territory he senses he might have conquered with those three words.

What they have. Frail and undernourished. Impossible. A vulnerable little seedling striking down roots in the middle of a trafficked road, forcing itself through a crack of asphalt. Strong. _Against all logic. _

And hell, what a fucked-up, warped man he is to fall for her. Incomplete, unfinished woman. Nobody must have loved her before. _Nobody. _

_But he does. **He** does._

_

* * *

_

_A/N: Hmm… soppy?... Please review if you liked it (and even if you didn't)_


	21. Another game

_God… these chapters just get longer and longer. I have gone way past what's logical and decent by now. Can't help it. I keep cutting and cutting and somehow new stuff sneaks in there in between the lines._

_Thanks to those still reading and for all the reviews, they have picked me off the floor these last few weeks: _

_Katey, CarolynneRuth (thanks for basically reviewing the whole fic in two days, quite a feat in itself – I loved all your little reactions and comments) Gabism, Yema (actually the ratting Kate out for a reward is a great idea, too bad I didn't think of that one : ) – oh and no cellphone reception up at the house, therefore the stumbling to the village, but maybe I should have mentioned that again… And, no not a writer, it's just a hobby, work in design. ) Trapped in a Matchbox, Scotty (thanks for the compliment – blushing now - yeah, I'm also pretty disappointed in this season too. All of the relationships on the show seem pretty 'meh' right now.) Tiana (glad you reviewed and please don't feel shy about your English – not a native speaker either… ), tsol (happy the fic made you feel better for Kate/Sawyer… : ) ._

_Ok…this chapter is mostly fluff, written for the hell of it and because I'm feeling a little nostalgic for S1. Hope you enjoy it anyway. _

_Rated M for mature subjects and language_

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

_

* * *

_

**Another game**

**

* * *

**

She can feel him watching her even before she opens her eyes.

To find him there, his face so near. She can almost forget everything that has happened. Can almost make believe it will be alright.

The way he looks at her, a little sheepish but open, baring himself to her. _This is it. Take it or leave it. _Tired eyes, puffy from sleep or the lack of it. The beginnings of crow's feet and laughter lines visible in the morning light. His hair falling across his forehead, as if asking to be stroked away, to be brushed to the side. The muscles of his face relaxed, open and earnest, inviting a caress. His lips, a little dry and cracked, parted a fraction.

It stuns her, the way his lips moves, the unexpected, heartbreaking 'sorry' not spoken. A superfluous '_sorry'_ because she can't blame him for any of this – _for who she is._ His eyes radiating warmth, with an artlessness, a veracity that burns through her.

This morning that she hadn't wanted to wake up to, had wanted to postpone forever. This day that she can't imagine facing, and is facing anyway. They are gone but _he_ is here. Offering himself, for what it's worth. _To her._ Wants to give in. Wants to give him what he wants. Wants nothing else and it takes her breath away, sucks it right out of her lungs and she can't stand it. Can't stand the knowledge that his eyes will change. Once he gets to know what's inside of her.

_This._

The way it ought to be – if she could be someone else. Her wistful hopefulness frightens her. She never gets what she wants, that's a given. She will ruin everything. Like she always does.

But his fingers between hers. A shy and hesitant kind of love for him. A tremulous, delicate hope that they could be.

_Like this._

_

* * *

_

The moment shattered by Miles' mad dash through the living room.

"Hey, lets go! It's late."

Sawyer groans, closing his eyes. It's barely 7 AM but she feels it too. The sense of urgency, facing the day. She flies up from the sofa, clambers over him and he looks like he's about to protest but he says nothing, just gets up after her.

She braces herself as she steps into Claire's room. Shuts herself inside. Won't feel it.

_It doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt if you won't let it._

Picks up the bare necessities. Claire's purse, the passports and a few things of Aaron's. Doesn't allow herself to stop and think, just mechanically collects the things and presses them into her beat up canvas bag. She packs her own stuff, haphazardly just dumps it in her bag. The last item she takes is the dirty baby blanket, still on the sofa table where Sawyer had dropped it the night before. Hides it between her own clothes. Ashamed of this sentimentality she has. The habit of placing all of her sorrow in inanimate objects, so that she doesn't have to deal with them.

She swipes by him a few times and they don't look at each other. But the air is thick of it. Oppressive with a sudden discomfort, their unexpected awkwardness. The unsteady ground of something new. The feeling of having showed too much, the fear of not being enough. She's acutely aware of his physical presence as they move through the rooms, cross each other's ways. The electrical current of being in his vicinity. The overpowering urge to inhale deeply as he slides by not looking at her, both studiously avoiding any contact. Both intensely perplexed by the volatile change in their dynamics.

There is a sudden shyness between them; a timidity stemming from the daunting surge of emotions, that none of them knows how to deal with. This tendency to mistake closeness, any sort of dependency for weakness. Their bond; translucent in its fragility. Inhibited, disconcerted, paralyzed by the possibility of real intimacy.

Unable to breach the self-imposed separation that it brings.

* * *

They make their way down to the little village. He is by her side all of the time. Waiting, because she shouldn't be holding up this well. Waiting for her to fall apart but she is touchingly stoic today. _Perhaps she's in denial. _ _Hell_, he doesn't know. Whatever it takes, he thinks. She has to deal with it in any which way works for her. Life stirring, waking up all around them. The air is fresh and easy to breathe after the rain, the ground still soggy, muddy. They struggle with their luggage down the hill.

They walk side by side, the back of hands accidentally brushing against each other every now and then. It jolts him, dislodges him. How she smells freshly of soap and shampoo, looking like a different woman today. Her hair, snaking itself over her shoulders in glossy wet waves from the quick shower. She is dressed in a crisp white t-shirt and faded blue jeans that hugs her hips in a way that is deeply distracting. A pair of simple sandals on her feet, her sneakers too muddy, too wet to be worn.

He's profoundly aware of her, every little gesture magnified thousand-fold by the way his pulse picks up at a transitory glance or a fleeting contact. _Crap_. It wasn't always like this. There was a time when he could watch her and not care. Though that was a long time ago. He can hardly remember it. Now it means to much.

The short-lived connection they'd shared this morning, lying there face to face. The faint possibility of something genuine. So scared to fumble it away, screw it up somehow. They have gotten this far, and he _knows_ there is something there, something that is right. But he can't take it from here. It's all in her hands now and it freaks him out. So much depending on it. _Everything_ depending on it.

They try the first one of the portals of the little compounds. Encourage by the sounds from within, people talking softly and a rooster crowing and the sound of a baby crying. The gate opens, just a few inches and the fresh face of a young boy peeps through, hair wet and combed slicked, skin gleaming in the sun. He just nods at them, expectantly, waiting for them to speak up.

"Okay, let me deal with this," Sawyer whispers quietly to the two of them. "Listen, we need help, our pal is sick, needs a hospital. Doctor…"

He nods towards Miles who dutifully clutches his stomach and writhes as if in pain. Kate just stands there. Figures.

"We need a car," he says mimicking steering with both hands.

The man nods and slams the gate shut.

"Great conning skills there Jimbo. They must think we're real nutjobs," Miles grouches and makes to turn around, to walk towards the next compound.

"Wait. He'll get someone…" Sawyer says with an arrogant confidence he hasn't got today.

And seconds later the gate is opened wide and standing there, plump and shiny, dressed in a sloppy white undershirt and a sarong tied high across the wide expanse of his belly. The cop. _Their_ cop.

"Ah, you!" he exclaims happily as if he's been expecting them. "Sini, masuk aja, come in!"

They stumble in behind him. Have to lift their muddy feet above the high step of the door frame and then down a few slabs of stone into the court yard.

Their friend the cop leads the way towards one of those funny wall-less houses that the Balinese seem to favour, the bale, a wooden structure on poles two feet off the ground, covered by a thatched roof. He gesticulates for them to sit down. Miles playing the role of sickly tourist slumps down on his side, legs over the edge of the floor. Sawyer, dumps their bags on the ground at his feet and sits next to him and then Kate, a half-assed kind of leaning against it rather than sitting on top of it. As if she's ready to bolt.

He glances at her, knows her jittery nervousness. Can spot it a mile away. With the cop and everything that has happened, it is hardly surprising. She's holding up surprisingly well. Tougher than flint this girl, a strange contradiction to her volatility and the flux of her emotions.

The plump cop comes trundling back, an equally chubby woman walking behind him with a baby in a sling, carrying a thermos by its handle and a few glasses. All in a natural, deft one-handed grip as if the baby has sprouted off her midriff. He imagines that she does everything with the baby right there like a natural extension of her.

"What you want?" the man says while the woman pours the steaming hot fragrant tea into the glasses, with an open handed gesture for them to drink it.

"Our friend here is sick," Sawyer says indicating Miles with his thumb. "We need to bring him to a hospital, down in Sanur if you could lend us a ride…"

The glimmer of the man's intelligent black eyes in the morning sun. _Shit. _ He _**must**_ buy it.

"Ya, dokter ya? Ada dokter here… I get him."

"Nah, no, my pal here's a bit particular. We really like to get him to the hospital. He's a bit frail… We really just need a car if you got one."

"Ada, ada…" the policeman says in a slow manner that drives Sawyer insane. Just say yes or no for god's sake. " Soon. Car to market, you go with. Terus, bis…bus!"

"Yeah, alright so we'll hitch a ride with you fellows to the market and then we catch the bus, that right?" He takes a grateful sip of the hot tea, relishing in its sweetness, the simple comfort of its warmth.

"_Ya, benar. Santai aja,_ rest here, okay?" the man beams towards him and how the fuck someone can be so jolly in spite of having had his quiet morning disturbed by three bedraggled strangers? The hospitability is incomprehensible to him. Why this family let them inside their compound is beyond him, a murderer and a conman, with a guy who talks to dead people in tow. A bunch of freaks that thinks they've time-travelled and seen god knows what other bizarre stuff. They ought to be thrown in a mental facility, the lot of them. Maybe he more than any of them. After all; he's the one who's fallen like a goddamn stone for _her_.

"Alright, sounds like a plan buddy..."

The chubby small woman has a cloth tied tightly across her chest and a sarong around her hips, just like her husband. Her hair is a mess, like a black bird nest, but she is friendly and her curious eyes jump between them, taking in her surprise visitors, evaluating them. Sawyer watches fascinated how her muscular arms almost sparkle in the bright sunshine. She leaves the thermos there with them. A charming old-fashioned light blue thermos with some kind of Chinese style peonies on it.

The baby held firmly in place against her chest squirms and with one fluid movement she has freed the infant from the sling and resolutely placed it in Kate's arms and bustles away towards the cluster of small traditional houses, with their weaved bamboo walls.

"Baby," the cop says needlessly as if a clarification is needed and nods towards the little thing. "Baby good luck, new wife. Give many babies, pegang aja, hold it.."

He follows his wife towards the house and Sawyer doesn't get it, why they'd leave the kid with them, strangers, just like that. Must be part of the hospitality. Maybe they just saw the opportunity to unload the squirmy little thing for a while.

"Well then Freckles, you better hold onto that little tot then," he says and though he means it as a joke, just to lighten things up, he notices the sheer panic on her face, the impulse to push the baby away. Watches as she fights herself and clumsily embraces the kid instead. All thumbs as if she's never done this before, in spite of the fact that he's seen her a million times handling Aaron like a pro.

She casts him an fleeting anxious look.

The baby, perhaps a year old or so or fifteen, damned if he knows. It's a little fatty and it seems snug and content in Kate's lap, unaware of her discomfort, little fingers grappling for her hair. It has butter-bronzed skin and is dressed in a cloth diaper and a pint-sized t-shirt, it's head shaved except for a little tuft on top.

He watches as she slowly begins to relax with the kid. The baby is sleepy but curious and soon settles in her arms, head resting against her shoulder, staring up at her lazily while pulling at her wet tangled hair. Kate's thumb moving over the golden skin, over the plump folds of the baby's arm.

Quick as sin, bowing her head down to smell the little tuft of black hair on the crown of the baby's head. He's seen her do it so many times, with Aaron, stolen moments when she thinks no one is looking. Sniffing that kid as if he were A-grade coke. That blissful smile on her lips a hint of sadness intermingled, even now, when everything has been lost. Drawing in the fragrance of this little stranger in her arms. _Women and kids_, he'll never understand what it is.

"I get that you wanted to be near that little bugger…" he says softly because she looks so goddamn guilty it makes him sick. "But _**this**_, it wadn't your fault, not your responsibility… Jack should have looked after them. It's _**his**_ damn family after all... What, he too busy boozing it up to help out his poor knocked up sister?"

"_You_ don't know anything about that," that hard-headed mulishness of hers. He hates that she defends him. _Saint Jack._ Still, after all that has happened, apparently _nothing _can knock him off his goddamn pedestal. The familiar jealousy, an ugly taste of bile.

"Just lay off her Jimmy," Miles butting in and it pisses him off royally. He's got nothing to do with this. With them. Sawyer shoots him a death glare, warning him to stay the hell out of his business. Miles shrugs and returns to looking bored and pretending to be ill.

Her face set harshly, pushing away the feminine soft curves. That stupid detached, fortitude that she never uses for anything positive, only to fight people off with, shut the world out. Him as the improbable, untrustworthy voice of logic, it's ridiculous. And she: pigheaded, clinging to some vague, in her mind heroic, principle drawn entirely from her own obscure map of ethics.

"Well, maybe not… Look, I get that you felt attached to the little thing. But it wasn't your fault. Jackass done the right thing, we wouldn't be in this shit now…You'd be better off producing your own spud than picking up the goddamn slack from Doc…" He hears the words come out, hard and cruel though he doesn't mean it like that. Reaches out to touch her cheek with his free hand, to counteract the callousness of it. And because it seems to be what she needs. _What he needs. _

Wants her near him. Wants to try to take her back to that moment this morning. That moment when he felt her, felt her giving in. When they where _so_ close. Wants to push her head against his shoulder. Wants to rub her back and feel her breath on his neck, to show her that it's okay. They'll be alright.

"I _can't._" She tosses off his hand, smacks it away, holding on to the now sleeping baby with her one arm.

_Don't touch. _

The violence of her. Makes him wonder how the heck she was brought up. The fighting, the fists, the cruelty, it's all normal, everyday stuff to her. He hopes that their host will not see them like this. Retreats, the meek downcast eyes. He hates when she does that. How she bunches up the fabric of the baby's shirt between her fingers, leaving a web of wrinkles.

"Maybe not now, but one day. Meet the right fellow, set up home, a real one and you can just start popping them out." Forcing himself to sound casual about it, sipping the warm tea, feeling the sugar grains between his teeth mixing with the bitterness of the black tea. They both know the impossibility of all of that. He's only talking crap.

"I can't," she repeats like an imbecile, picking with the baby's shirt. Seeking comfort in that little thing. That stiff and hostile look of hers– a sadness, a grief that he wants to run from. _That face that says; 'stay away'. Visitors not welcome. _Abhors this side of her. Prefers the fighting and the pure anger. This, whatever this is, it's messy and sticky with an undercurrent of something too private. Something he doesn't understand.

"Sure you can baby. It's easy. Piece of cake. You just d-o-n-'t take other peoples kiddo's." He says flippantly, beginning to get seriously annoyed by her monotone idiotic repetition.

"I _can't_ – have - any," she says, jaws taut and tense biting into the words with a type of fury that only sorrow can bring, her eyes finally meeting his. Glassy, dark green, a feverish look and his heart sinks to his feet. The basic, primordial pain in them. He doesn't want to be here, doesn't want to see this. _What the fuck can he say? What the hell does one say to that?_

He wishes not for the first time that people, or rather this specific person, came equipped with a manual. Kind of like those instructions on how to safely dismantle a bomb without detonating it.

"Oh hell… look, damn, I didn't know… " he says looking down into the warm glass of tea, little bits of tea leafs twirling around in it. Because seriously, _what else is there to say?_

Remembers that time at the barracks. Suddenly seeing it a different light now. _And hell_. He wishes he could go back, take it all back. Have all those things undone, unsaid again. What a total insensitive ass he'd been. No wonder she'd run from him. No wonder she'd scadoobled right over to Doc. He had been spot on when he'd told her he wasn't boyfriend material. Can't even deal with this. She's been telling him to back the hell off from the get-go of this conversation and he just bulldozes on.

She doesn't answer, doesn't say it's okay or any of those contrived platitudes that normal people spread around them to make things less awkward, to cushion the blow with. Just sits there silently beside him. And he doesn't have to look at her to know that her jaws are clenched shut so tightly the nerves vibrate in her cheeks all the way up to her temples.

He's not the crying type but he feels like crying now. _For her._ For himself. For everything.

And the anger that accompanies it, the annoyance over the casual way she'd thrown it out there, slapped him in the face with it. As if it wasn't anything important. _As if it doesn't concern him_. Which of course it _doesn't_ – hell, he _knows _that. They'd known each other for a few months, screwed around, fucked up each other and made one another miserable. _That's it._ But it still cuts like a hot knife through butter. The even tone she'd used, and then for her to say _nothing_ else. To leave the sad notion of it hanging there, for him to make what he want with it. No explanations, no elaborations.

_And he wants to know goddamnit!_

It tears him up. How the hell does she know? How can she be so fucking sure?

Wants to interrogate her, strap her to a chair and shine a sharp light in her eyes. Wants to question her, wants to pick up all the facts and data, go over them with a magnifying glass. _Wants to know how the hell she can be so sure._ He has no right to any of this but he wants, wants to. _No - has to._ He needs all the evidence handed to him. Wants to sift through whatever proof she believes she has, wants to examine them, scrutinize them. Wants to be able to sneer at her and say that she 's being melodramatic. Wants to be able to dismiss her words with a shrug. _Doesn't want it to be true._

And he doesn't understand why, but he feels a devastating loss at her words.

It's not even like he ever wanted a kid with her. Not as if he's ever wanted one, with _anyone_. Her and him, it _**would**_ be the worst thing in the world. The fucked-up equation that they are, a mathematical formula that can't be worked out, a default error built into it. Throw a kid into the mix and you'd have the makings of a true tragedy.

Besides; he, the true asshole that he is, was… he has already fathered a kid. Has already spread his useless, pathetic genetic material, carelessly ejaculated his miserable legacy. Has already done enough damage to the world and to one little girl in particular. He'd sworn to himself after the pregnancy scare they'd had on the island, he'd never again let that happen. A religious believer in contraceptives ever since. You'd never catch him with his pants down without a rubber. _No sir._

Even with the harmony and stability he'd found with Juliet, he hadn't been able to imagine himself a father. It had been a source of wordless tension between the two of them. But fact is, the mere thought of being a father, the unpronounced fear of becoming like _him_, his own father, had kept any urge to procreate safely at bay.

And _still_, in spite of all this, and the absolute logic if it all, he feels a loss at her words. A loss of something he never even wanted in the first place.

_A door nailed shut to an impossible possibility._

Her shoulders pulled up tensely. A hand on her and spines might very well shoot out from her back, impaling him.

_Don't touch._

The lady of the house swoops down on them, comes back with a tray laden with plates of steaming rice porridge, placing it on the floor of the 'bale' next to them with a gesture that say's _'go ahead'._ She carefully disentangles her sleeping baby's little fists from Kate's hair, lifts him up gently and returns to her house.

And they eat. _In silence. _Observed by a couple of little girls, perhaps six or seven years old. Standing there at a safe distance, watching the three of them intently. Hair in perfect braids, red ribbons tied around them. Matching white and red school uniforms, all knobbly skinny knees and quicksilver black eyes.

Him, peeking at her. Her faced closed off to him and the world. Wants to get through to her. Get through this.

And then, the perverted magic of her.

He watches in awe as she shakes it off. Pushes her sadness away and smiles at the little girls in front of them, making them giggle hysterically. _A fighter._ That's what she is. Fucked-up and dented and ruined, but she picks herself up from the ground and staggers forward.

_Allows himself to secretly swoon. _The toothy grin she graces the little girls with.

* * *

They're in the cab of an old pick up truck. The back is loaded with vegetables and fruits presumably going to the market, and a few smiling young women and a grandmother poised gracefully on top as if this death-wish ride was every day common stuff which naturally it is.

The driver is a young skinny man, who doesn't look old enough to shave yet. Miles is wedged in the middle and Sawyer mashed up the left door of the cab with Kate on his lap trying to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling every time the truck goes over a bump or into a pothole.

It's hot in the cab, the windows rolled down, or perhaps there are no windows, she isn't sure and the wind does nothing to cool them down. White hot air flushing against her face. She can feel her shirt sticking to her skin, how perspiration runs down her back and at her temples. Her hair flying every which way.

His thighs hard and solid under her and he keeps moving his hands, from resting them on his own legs, her thighs, her hips, her waist and then back down again. The fidgeting, usually her department, not his. But this, between them. The shift, the sense of something real evolving. And they are both too frail, there is too much cowardice between them to own up to it. Mostly hers.

Can't think of him now. Can't think of Aaron or Claire either. Can't keep wondering where they are and what on earth Widmore wants with them. What the heck would you want with a young single mother and a baby? Doesn't want to think at all. The void too large, the ravine too deep. She can't go there. W_hat will she do now?_ She's lost and she doesn't want to look forward, can't look back. All that she has lived for, for the last few years. _Gone. _Just like that.

The heat and the sense of loss makes her irritable. When his hands come back to rest on her hips for the umpteenth time she is seething.

"Get your hands off," she says sotto voce, but loud enough for Miles to turn to give them one of his trademark disdainful looks, dark circles tattooed under his eyes.

"And where would you suggest I put them ma'm?" he sneers back.

"I don't care, as long as they're not anywhere on me."

He doesn't answer, just slides those long tapered hands at the side of his own thighs, thumb resting on hers legs and it's enough. It sends a current, fizzing and whirring within her. That thirst for him that he always manages to bring. She squirms, because it's hot and she can't get comfortable. Trying to hold onto the dashboard in front of her, to put as little weight as possible on him.

"You're gonna' wanna stop moving like that," he hisses in her ear.

"I'm not doing anything…" she retorts turning her head as far around as it goes to look at him. His stubble long and dark in the sharp morning light. His lips suddenly too near hers. Her eyes automatically drawn to them. And he _knows_.

"Whatever you say sweetheart, as long as you stop rubbing that pretty little rump against me," he wheezes teeth grinding against each other, nodding downwards. "Save it for later…"

"Classy as ever…" her voice hushed and snooty. The obvious bulge under her, annoyingly arousing. And just to bug him, or just because she knows it's frustrating for him, she decides to make it worse. She moulds her sweaty back against his chest, so close she can feel his heart pumping against her, and it's too hot. She leans her head back on his shoulders and burrows in her ass against his crotch.

"Oh fuck it Kate," he exhales and it makes her smile in spite of everything. His arms that don't move but his thumbs, rubbing against the sides of her thighs. The longing for the little house in Sanur floods her. The yearning for something simpler. A steamrolling desire smothers her, the thought of that bed waiting for them, the comfort of clean white sheets against her skin. _With him_.

* * *

They are dropped off at a small town centre and it takes them several hours to locate a bus that is going south, the perplexed locals sending them here and there, unclear of what they want. They have some food at the side of the road while waiting. The bus is like something out of a movie. Goats, chicken, people, _you name it._

Cramped and crowded and hot but at least they each manage to find a seat. And he thanks his lucky star because he couldn't have lasted a moment longer with her in his lap. Annoyed by his own weakness, his pathetic need for her. _What is he; fifteen?_

It's late afternoon when they finally reach Sanur. Dusty, dog-tired and smelly. Kate's and Miles' cellphones are both dead, out of batteries since the previous night's black out so they make their way to the Emporium first, take a cab for the little stretch rather than dragging their luggage all the way.

Hurley is in his office when they stumble in.

"Dudes? What are you doing back?" his surprise at seeing the three of them. "Where's Claire?"

Miles and Sawyer exchange uncomfortable glances.

* * *

Henry's quickly called into Hurley's service. Given a promise of neat little wad of cash if he can find anything, any trace at all of Danan and Widmore. _Of Claire and Aaron. _A favour with the local police and Hurley's contacts at the Immigration office is called in to. Everything they can possibly think of. Short of calling in the cavalry.

It's all they can do. And it doesn't feel enough. _Far from it_. A mauling sense of loss eating at them all. And no one says the obvious, but all of them are thinking of it, of that he's sure.

_The island._ They have to get back to the island.

He for one, sure as hell isn't going along with it. He's done with that damned hellhole, too much pain and loss associated with it. Hell, he ain't never going back again.

_Kate. _

Looking lost on that red sofa in Hurley's fancy office. He knows that _she_ will. Her sense of loyalty far exceeds her survival instincts. She'll do anything for that kid. He knows it. Just doesn't want to think of it, the implications of it. _Not now_.

Miles animosity grates at him. He is still sullen and quiet and refuses to say anything outside what the bare necessities require. Miles asks Hurley to put him up at the Emporium, says he can't stand being in that house again. Like a ghost house without Claire and Aaron.

He leaves with Kate. None of them saying anything, just a coincidence that they will go back to the house, only the two of them. Her arm that brushes by his as they make their way through the door of the hotel. Electrifying. Her skin against his. Imagines them going back, _'home'_. Imagines them falling down on that bed, the one with the pristine linen. Her feeling safe there with him. Imagines the two of them there, making love, entangling themselves in those sheets, in each other. And he catches himself. It's a laughable concept. He never thinks of _**it **__– _as making love. Too sentimental, too simpering a word for something he used to do to for money. The sleeplessness must be getting to him.

He walks behind her down the beach path. Watches as she lugs her heavy bag with her, not offering to help because he wants an excuse to lag behind, to watch the small of her back, her ass in those snug blue jeans as she struggles ahead. Likes to imagine what will happen next, even though it seems a very remote possibility that anything good will come out of this hellish day.

* * *

He throws his stuff down on the sofa in the living room and looks up to see her stand there in front of the door to her room. Like a question mark. As if she's waiting. But he isn't going to help her out. If she wants him to sleep in there with her, she can just damn well say so. _He can't do this for her. _Over and over again. Swallowing down the thought of those white sheets and her bare legs around him. The pathetic kind of domestic bliss he's daydreaming about.

"What?" he tosses it carelessly her way as if he didn't know.

A hesitation that just flitters by before she clams up.

"Did you wanna' say something?" he prods, knowing damn well what she's waiting for.

"No. Nothing." Pinching her lips. But her eyes, the way she looks at him under those lashes. _Come on,_ he thinks. _We can do this._ But hell, no._ He ain't going to do it all for her. _

"Ah, I see what this is… You were expecting me to sleep with you weren't ya'?" Grins at the inadvertent double entendre.

"Ha! No. I don't expect _anything_ from you." Snippity-snap, they're back to that. The reassuring familiarity of it all. Watches as she leaves him there. And though he can feel the invisible tow towards her room, wants to follow her in there, wants nothing else, he's not going to. Next one will have to come from her. Wants what he saw this morning. _That openness._

After all that has happened his nerves are in a tassel and as tired as he is, he's also frustrated beyond reason_. So he smokes. _Cigarette after cigarette until there is a pile of butts in the sleek stone ashtray out on the porch and he feels like throwing up from all the nicotine.

_And he waits. _

He knows she's coming. Knows the sort of pent-up energy that's buzzing under her skin, the anticipation building until it's impossible to keep under lid. He knows it because he can feel it too. It's been escalating all day. Needs a conclusion, _a release_. Needs to draw on that, the waking up with her this morning. That flighty, intangible sense of being onto something. Because_ h__ell,_ this can't be it. There must be a dimension, a universe in which they could exist together. In which she'd trust him enough to let him. _In._

It takes longer than he'd thought. But then she's there. In a rush of air. Standing there, a bit out of place. A big fat sulk on those plump lips, a shy, disgruntled determination that thrills him. That gorgeous pink hue to her cheeks.

_He breathes easier after that._

"Hi there…"

" Hi yourself…" she says crabbily. And he loves her like that. It automatically gives him the upper hand. Makes him brave, shuts away the stifling awkwardness of today. Back to what they know. She's showered and changed her clothes. That flimsy red top that just begs for hands to glide in, for shoulder straps to slide down. The straps of a black bra underneath, a gap, flash of skin between the top and the military green cargo pants. It's just…. _Shit. _Yeah, he might as well have been _fifteen. _The way he can't help ogling her.

"To what do I owe the honour?" Turns it around. Decides to make it no secret that he likes the way she looks.

"I can't sleep…" She doesn't say 'alone', but he hears it anyway, echoing after she's closed her mouth again. She squeezes in between the daybed and the chest serving as a table, sits her ass down there right in front of him. Her knees between his. Jeans against drab green cargoes. _Expectant. _

"You an' me both Sweetcheeks. So waddaya' wanna' do?" he leers at her. Mostly because that's what he does and to cover up the indecisiveness of seeing her there. The Vulnerability that it puts him in. The wanting to just pull that red top over her head.

"I don't know. I really don't know what to do now," she says elbows on knees, abruptly dropping her face in her hands, and she sounds so low, so crushed that he can't make it into a joke. Want to comfort her but doesn't know how to go about it. Knows her well enough to know that it might well backfire. Unstable like a stack of old dynamite.

"Whaddaya' say, you wanna' keep old Sawyer company out here?"

"Yeah," she whispers into the palms of her hands and he has to fight the urge to touch her hair. "Yeah."

* * *

"I _know_ something we can do Freckles …" he murmurs leaning forward waiting for her to lower her hands from her face. His breath caressing her cheek, that Southern twang that sounds like an indecent proposition no matter what. "I know something that'll perk you right up..."

He slowly heaves himself up from the daybed and she wonders if she's supposed to follow him inside. Watches his laid-back swagger slash shuffle across the porch. The way he bows down to enter the low door to the house, this beautiful impossible man.

_She waits._ Her feet twitching to go in after him.

He comes back with two chilled bottles of vodka. Two large bottles. Much too much for the two of them to drink. Showing off the dimples in a crooked smile. Anticipation pearling off him as he cradles the bottles like twin babies in his arms.

"_**You**_ thought I meant _sex_ didn't you Puddin'?"

She can roll her eyes as much as she wants at this, but fact is, she sort of did and she wouldn't have put up much resistance had that been the case. He's had a shower and his hair is silky and clean around his face. He smells of soap and tobacco and she'll be damned if he hasn't shaved too. Seems like someone is banking on romance tonight.

"Nope, but you're clearly hoping for it," she taunts him hitching her chin up.

He gives her a come-hither kind of leer that would have looked outrageous on anyone else but just makes her cheeks heat up.

"Well maybe I've got a date…"

"With your hand most likely…"

"Aw, I see what this is baby. Missing the old hand are we? Well, that could be remedied…" he sidles down in front of her. One leg on each side of her knees, giving her a little squeeze by pushing his thighs together.

"Yeah don't flatter yourself buddy," she says indifferently but can't help dropping her gaze to his beautiful hands and realizes that the son of a bitch has done a bit of manicure too. Nails clipped short, filed perfectly round as well. This absurd metro-sexual obsession, the pride he takes in keeping his hands groomed, so contradictive to his red-neck persona.

"We have time for that too Sweets… " he says noticing her eyes on his hands and his lazy drawn out vowels stir up an oppressive impatient longing within. "But right now, I reckon you and me need a big old drink."

"Two bottles? Are you kidding – you want to kill us Sawyer?" They both have this, this destructive predisposition, a penchant for drama.

"Well if you ain't drinking, I'll drink it all myself," he says offhandedly, smirking at her. "And we wouldn't want that, would we? Might put a big ol' damper on the other stuff… later…"

"Yeah that would really be _too_ bad, " she snaps, the flirtation getting to her, feeling her top stick to her back. She is tired but that mouth-watering energy that he gives off keeps her alert. Can't relax for one second with him, can't let him win. That competitive streak in both of them.

"Wouldn't it just?"

"Okay, give me that." She reaches for the bottle in the hand nearest to her. He teases her, swiftly sweeping his arm up, away, out of reach.

" U-hu… you wanna' drink you're gonna' have to play Freckles…you know the deal…" Flicking his hair back, tongue in cheek.

Holding the bottle above his head, egging her on. She has to smile at him. Just like that, he goes back, back to where they were. _This_ they know and she doesn't want to be bereft tonight. Doesn't want to think of Aaron or Claire or the total disaster that this has all turned into. Wants his easy banter, wants the way they key each other up, their age old foreplay that never leads anywhere.

"That trick won't work this time. I _know_, and you _know_, that those bottles are Hurley's. Not from your secret stash."

"How do _you _know?" he says playing offended, bottom lip protruding predictably. "You wanna' drink or not Sugarpops?

"Yeah alright, give it here!"

She takes the chilled bottle stretched towards her. It's unopened and she struggles a bit with the aluminium cap, slippery from the humidity.

"_My_, ain't you the eager beaver?" he teases as he watches her fight with it, finally twisting it open.

"It's your company… need to numb my senses," she says and he lets out a chortle. Moving a little closer. Them there, in front of each other. The delight at the game they play, the way they toy with each other. It makes everything better.

"Well, ain't you all about the flattery Freckles… ?" A quick little press of his knees against hers before he slides them away, gives her space. "Okay then, you know the drill already. Go ahead, shoot!"

His dark blue shirt, sleeves folded up and the maple syrup of his skin beneath. His wrists, fine and sculptured. Makes her want to kiss his hands. She watches as he changes his grip around his bottle. Thighs wide apart as he sits, the picture of manly confidence, dangling the bottle by its neck between his knees. Make her want to take him down a notch. Expose his weakness.

"I've never been jealous at a gay man," she says quietly and looks at him. He nods, irritated, eyes narrowing – _he's so transparent_.

"Ouch, so the gloves are off - so _that's_ how it's gonna be huh darling?"

His chagrin evident. She cocks her eyebrows towards him, towards the drink_. But it's light._ This thing between them, not so loaded, both of them relaxing at the familiarity of the teasing, the bantering. A little normalcy after the horror of the last twenty-four hours. And she doesn't want to think of that now. Wants to escape for a moment.

"Come on, just play the game….and don't be a sore looser. This was all your idea! "

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Honeypie." He says in a deadpan voice, taking a small sip and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand afterwards. Baring his teeth to her, as he draws the drink in between his teeth. Wolfish, like a big shaggy dog.

She starts to get comfortable, pulls her legs up on the table, sits cross-legged opposite of him, feeling strangely happy there._ With him. _

_Has missed this_. The instigation of a power struggle, both of them grappling for control. It's harsh and ruthless on the surface, but underneath it all, a trembling warmth. The fear for that thread of intimacy buried somewhere at the core of it.

"Okay then. My turn then… well, well, what's it gonna' be…" he says curling his lip in a way that tells her the game is on. Tells her he's not going to be nice about it. "I've never jumped a man in a bathroom … and by jumped I mean…"

"Yeah yeah, I know _exactly_ what you mean," she mutters grumpily and drinks. He chuckles, flicking back his hair. Satisfied to get to her so easily.

They hear the splat-splat-splat of raindrops falling on the roof above them. Both stupidly looking up. The rain is light and the evening gentle and calm. The fragrance from the frangipani trees and of incense from somewhere nearby.

"Waddaya' know, more rain…" he says quietly, velvety eyes catching hers. And it's all she can do not to lean forward and kiss him, to push him back on the daybed. _Take him_. "I thought they might have run out of the stuff the other night…"

She doesn't answer. She's not ready to joke about it yet. She doesn't think she'll ever be. Just taking a short break from the sadness, doesn't want to think about it. She pulls a stray hair behind her ear and fastens her eyes on the ceiling above his head. The little lizards moving stealthily, looking for tonight's dinner.

"I have never travelled across the world only to bug someone," she says lightly to the lizards.

"Ha ha, very funny," he grouches and knocks back a generous slurp, grumbling while he drinks. "Wadn't only 'bout that Freckles."

"Drink up buddy," she says, her turn to gloat. The warmth at the core of her from the air he gives off. The sense that there are undercurrents of something important here, something sensual, affectionate. Something tender that doesn't quite dare to declare itself.

"Well, my turn again then I guess….I have…well you see Freckles, I have never been engaged." A hit under the belt. She knows he must have found out about her failed engagement to Jack. It bothers her anyway. She drinks alone, takes two distinct swigs from her vodka. Feeling the coolness as it makes its way down her throat to her belly. "Yeah, that's right. Two times huh?"

"Shut up," she quips quietly. "Okay, so next one is me then…" She pretends to think, clicking her fingernails against the glass of her bottle. "I have never… pretended to be an asshole to cover my feelings."

He doesn't drink and neither does she. They just sit there, looking coolly at each other. Laying claim to a brash confidence that neither of them truly possesses.

'So I guess that just comes naturally then… the asshole-ness?"

"Hah, well we won't get much drinking done this way. So… let's get this on the road, waddaya' say Sugarplum?... I've never…. shacked up with a doc, just to get over somebody…" grins naughtily brushing back his stringy hair again and it falls right back in his face. He cocks his head back and nods smugly watching her take a nip from her drink. She lowers it and stares at him expectantly. He looks bewildered until it dawns on him. Reluctantly lifts up his own, holding it between thumb and index finger as he brings it to his lips and takes a large mouthful, making his cheeks bulge.

The sound of him swallowing - hard.

"Hey, waddaya' know. We _**do **_have something in common after all." Eyes glittering, boring into her, demanding her attention, making her fidget with the bottle.

"Never slept with anyone for money," she says cruelly. He glugs it down quickly and then throws the ball right back at her, the tempo picking up. Like two fighters circling each other, trying to find an unguarded spot. Get a leftie in.

"I've never played coy 'bout wanting someone in my bed."

She glares at him sitting there biting his bottom lip, as if he's trying to hold back a snigger. Can't help it, wonders why she doesn't just lie about it while her hand lifts the bottle to her mouth as if on autopilot. The liqueur soothing the shame of admitting to it.

"I _**knew**_ it…" he says under his breath and looks bizarrely happy, his eyebrows shooting up. "Well, you know baby… like I said; all you've got to do is ask… "

"Yeah, that isn't gonna' happen so just shut up Sawyer, it's my turn;… I've never…. never jumped off a helicopter to get away from a girl…"

Both of them immobile, watching each other, anticipating the other's next move. She waits.

"Aren't you going to drink?"

"No. I ain't drinking…am I ? " That argumentative set of his mouth. Shooting out his chin in a way that is far from attractive. As if he'd like to pick a fight about it. The stakes have been upped, abruptly changed the game. The joking light atmosphere evaporates and she wants to cling to it.

The staggering weight of the words hanging above them.

Words that want out, words that demand to be acknowledged. Only neither of them knows how to approach them. Words fraught with dangers and pitfalls _and she can't be the one. _He is the braver of the two, the one that dares to risk it all, put his guard down and his chin up. Lips open before he gets the words out.

_Wavering at the gravity of them._

"I never been in love." Coarse and hot in his throat, a tetchy challenging air about him. Glowering at her as if he is daring her to take the jump.

Last time she'd taken a large swig on her own. _He hadn't drunk._

_This time. _

This time they hoist their bottles up at the same time. His eyes scorching her, making her blush like a stupid little girl, _drinking_. His Adam's apple moving as he swallows and she fears he will down the whole bottle. He lowers it from his mouth, a swift little lick across his lips and then the smile.

_A wicked warm smile that makes her toes curl._

"It's a disaster…" his voice that hums through her veins. "Warrants a big fat gulp dontcha' think?"

And it's too intense, his eyes on her face. Penetrating her. Almost a violation. She has to divert hers, focusing on her hands around the bottle, the thrum of her own heart muffling all other sounds. Not sure if he's said what she thought he said. _Though she knows. She knows._ Warm fingers making marks on the condensation gathering on the bottle's surface.

_Don't go there_, she thinks. Feeling her inadequacy folding in on her. He places his drink on the chest, next to her. Does that thing when he shakes a smoke out of the package, his hair falling forward against his cheeks. He has a certain flair for doing it. Mesmerizing to watch his beautiful fingers against the dark red of the package. Strikes a match against its box, with that sly, crack of smile in her direction, cigarette wedged at the corner of his mouth.

His glibness. She knows all that is just plain camouflage. Knows the quivering, unappealing insecurity underneath. He puffs and blows out a small cloud of smoke, a perfect smoke ring. And they both watch it drift away, separate into thin air.

She snatches the cigarette from him, inhales and blows the smoke out through her nostrils. Trying to look cool, just making herself sneeze. The way he watches her. _A little edgy, nervous._ Ripping the smoke from her, almost aggressively, stubbing it out in the ashtray all done in one swift sequence of movements ending with him gripping her wrist pulling it down against his knee.

"You just have to ask baby…" His nose almost touching hers. _And she would. She would, if she thought they stood half a chance._

"Not gonna'" she says, unintentionally imitating his Southern twang. _His influence over her. _"Are you?"

"Hah, nope darling. It'll be you." Because this is what they do. The combative dance of the two of them. There is safety in this. In not admitting defeat in not letting on what they both know to be true. "You got an appetite Kate?"

And the way he says it, the tempting tone he uses, she doesn't know for sure that this isn't a honey trap. But she is hungry. Hasn't eaten since before they got on the bus.

"Well, yeah…" she says uncertain of what she's answering yes to.

"You _do _know I still ain't talking about sex right?" Smiling victoriously as he takes the bottle from her and places it on the table next to his, pulling her up standing with him. His chest bumping into hers as she shoots to her feet. Frozen for a second, and she thinks he might kiss her. _Hopes._ Wants to feel his freshly shaved chin against her own. But he drops his eyes to her feet as if he's out of nerves. And then ushers her ahead, down from the porch, his hands on her waist, fingers managing to find her skin under the edge of her top as he steers her through the courtyard.

"You're an ass Sawyer."

"That's not a very nice thing to say Freckles, I'm about to take you out for dinner, fatten you up and…"

She slides away from him. His hands too searing, too rousing on her. Playful chase across the yard slamming the gate closed behind them. A frolicking sprint through the dark alley, careful not to stumble on the uneven slippery paving. She gets there before him. A street-stall down by the beach, made from tarp and bamboo, making them look at each other. Perhaps both remembering his tarp on the beach, a night like this.

A young boy cooking over a big cheap wok, the sizzling rice spreading a heavenly fragrance. He buys them each a portion wrapped in brown paper with a rubber band around and they make their way down an empty stretch of the beach, near the ocean. They don't care about the light warm rain on their heads and their arms. Don't care that the sand is humid and that their trousers get dirty as they sit down on it. They eat quickly, shoves the food down, eating it with their fingers, scooping it up like they've seen the locals do.

Afterwards they wash their hands in the ocean, crouching down next to one another. And she realizes that for a few moments with him, she's managed not to feel it. He has helped drive it to the side for a little while. That's what he does.

Tomorrow. She knows. Tomorrow it will assault her again, suffocate her, demanding her full attention. Will hold her in its iron grip. _But now. Right now_. _He _is here and she doesn't want to think of it.

Wants only him.

She yawns, tries to hide it in her wet hand as she stands up again.

"First back gets the bed Sleepyhead… " he says, rules made up as he goes along for the games they play. _Too old for this._ Pretending that it's easy, that they can be like this.

He looks at her, and though it's dark, she senses the expectant suspense in his smile. Beyond the flirtation and the banter, he's a little tired, a little watchful and waiting for her. To either embrace him or refuse him. Wants a surrender of the type that she doesn't think she can give. Though she wants to. _Wants him_. Only wishes she were enough. Her foolish hopefulness whispering that maybe for a while, she _can_ be. Maybe she can pretend. _For a little while._

"Race you…"

Then the mad rush back. Hearts in throats, they can't get back fast enough.

* * *

_Hope you liked it… though I realized that last part went on forever.... _


	22. Another set of rules

_Thanks so, so, so much again for the sweet, kind, funny, insightful reviews... and for still reading this :- ) _

_Okay honestly the finale… All I can say is; 'meh'… watch me as I do my disillusioned shuffle back to the fanfic world. And don't worry if this fic takes some detours before it ends… it's just the way the story is. Won't be any afterlife waiting rooms and sob-fests by the vending machine in this though. -Scout's honour.-_

_And this, this is loooooong, as usual. Sorry, it's an illness, can't be helped._

_Rated M for language, mature subjects (mostly for the sexual references and the swearing)_

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

* * *

**Another set of rules**

**

* * *

**

He catches up with her in the dark alley. A hand clasping around her arm, slipping down to her fingers, entangling themselves between hers. _And god_, the flux of the current between them. She must feel it too.

_Impossible not to. _

She pulls him along as if she's suddenly in a hurry. All the unrestrained teasing, the rampant bantering, he's so buzzed, it takes next to nothing to ignite that single-minded desire for her.

_Let's go home. Lets…_

"Hey, slow down girl, you catching a train or what…?" he says, breathing hard after the short sprint, or maybe it's this. _Her._ And his mind, the way it works; like striking a match and throwing it in a barrel of gasoline. Light rain drizzling down on his face. Her fingers that move over his knuckles, stroking up against his wrist and _Christ!_ The build-up - excruciating, the extended flirting getting to him.

"Yeah, something like that…" she says, her voice dulcet and soft. _To die for. _Her face stubbornly turned forward, away from him. Her hand warm and firm, a little slippery from the rain but not letting go. As if she's bringing him somewhere. As if she can't wait. There is a promise in the air between them. A little hopefulness that has no place here. Wants to tug at her, wants to haul her near, wants to stumble in through the gate embraced like a strange four-legged creature. Wants to make rapid headway towards her bedroom, shedding their clothes left and right as if burning underneath. _Wants to. _

_But shit._

What with Danan and Widmore and Claire and the kid, he finds he's got scruples he never knew he had. A concern for her that is both uncomfortable and weird. Considering he also just wants to screw her senseless.

"You okay?" he asks though he knows he ought to just shut up, keep up the light banter and the sexual tension.

"Yeah, why shouldn't I be!" she says with an unemotional snappiness that tells him instantly that it's _not_. _Not okay._ All the joy and coquettishness falling away.

" You'll see, Hurley's gonna' throw all the money he's got at this. We'll find them Freckles. 'Sides, what the heck would Widmore and this Danan guy want with them anyways? "

Easier to talk in the darkness. Gives her hand a little encouraging squeeze that she doesn't return. Like a bucket of cold water on the desire. Thinking, he'll do the right thing. Tuck her into bed, properly this time, no sexual innuendos. Kiss her goodnight on her tipsy freckled nose and that'll be that. They will live to fight another day.

"I, I can't believe I let him in… near them… if I hadn't…."

_Hell,_ he shouldn't have said anything, should have let her remain in their tipsy little bubble for a little while longer. And he could kick himself for bringing it up. Idiot that he is. _Emotionally retarded._ The two of them surely deserve each other. She just sounds tired, wiped out and small, and he feels like a prick for even thinking of sleeping with her.

"It wasn't your fault Kate. _None of it…_ Should have…"

She ignores him, too close, too acrid to hear, he knows it. Her hand escaping his. She's trying so hard to push it all away, to pretend it never happened.

* * *

They reach the narrow gate and she shoves it open, stepping inside ahead of him. Her silhouette dark against the backdrop of the garden spotlights. Wants to place a hand on her lower back, a sense of ownership, possessiveness as he watches her walking across the courtyard. Nonsensical, when he has no such rights to her. Nudges the door shut with his hip, not bothering bolting it.

She waits in front of the house for him, her hand on the handle, a complete repetition of earlier. And so it goes around, another time. Same absurd merry-go-round. _And if this ain't her playing coy, he doesn't know what the hell it is. _Peering shyly at him beneath eyelashes, as if she's wondering whether he'll step inside with her. It reminds him of how much younger than him she must be, perhaps ten years or so, he has no idea. The childishness and that crude unfinished quality of her, confusing.

The night is humid and balmy, the rain the softest spray of fine water drops, the flutter of bats rustling by in the treetops, swooping in under the roof. And he would want nothing else, but to follow her in. But it's just. Crap. _Not tonight_. _It wouldn't be right,_ he thinks as he walks towards her, taking the step up the porch in one long stride. Trying to act nonchalantly unmoved by her. The way she stands, hands fidgeting with the red top. Waiting. For him.

_Not tonight, _he reminds himself. _Not tonight._

"You look beat girl. Well, you've won fair and square, you better skedaddle off to that bed in there… "

And it's a bluff, just a cop out. It's exactly that and they both know it.

But he has to rise above the urge. _Do the right thing. _And it takes everything he's got and a little bit more to just walk right by her. He sweeps past, trying not to inhale. Trying not to be swayed.

"Yeah…" she says but that's it.

She just remains standing there, lit from above, by the bare lightbulb of the porch, watching mutely as he sits down on the daybed. An uncomfortable silence descending upon them. Eyes a little anxious, mouth a little tense, an uneasiness about her. She must be exhausted. Tired and trying not to think of them, _he knows that_. As much as his feet yearn to stand up and walk towards her, usher her into bed, slip that red top over her head and slide the ugly cargo pants off and… _hell. _He can't go there. It's all too fucked up. She is a big old mess.

Tells himself; _do the right thing, goddammit._

He just sits, thighs wide apart, pretending he's not a big schmuck who wants a girl that can't be had.

A sober, nagging voice inside his head. The '_good guy'_ within, the one he'd wanted to leave behind with Juliet, always harassing him, pestering him to walk the straight and narrow. Maybe it's _James_ or some other irritating sonofabitch. While _Sawyer's_ rotten heart still pounds hard and crimson-red in his chest.

_Take her, take her, take her…_

Grudgingly letting James' voice of reason win over the lust, the infatuation for her. He knows how frazzled she must be, that bravado of hers, pretending all is fine and dandy. Doesn't want it to be like that with her. _A comfort fuck._ Though if he doesn't think about it too hard; that's _**exactly**_ what he wants, _needs_, right now.

Shakes out a cigarette and lights it. Leaning back as if he doesn't care. _Go on inside girl,_ he thinks. _She better damn well be quick about it, before he changes his fickle mind_. It wouldn't take much. Thinking; _if she asks him…yeah, if she asks… then he would follow. _Pretends to smoke leisurely, all cavalier about it, making perfect smoke rings, puffing them out one by one acting as if he's hardly aware of her standing there.

"Fish or cut bait, darling!"

"What?..."

"Make your call Freckles, or have you forgotten the way ?" he says. "It's the first to the right… Say's '_sleeps alone'_ on the door, you can't miss it. It's either that or you potter over here and tuck a man in for a change."

Irresistible, the way she stands there, a little off her kilter, blushing, unsure of what to do next. _Ask, please just ask. _Her eyes that drop to her feet. He almost grins in glee over the uncomfortable little shrug she makes. Dead certain she's thinking of that ' tucking in' of the other night.

"I'd tuck something in alright…" she mutters and the threat is so veiled or he's too drunk to get it, it does nothing but turn him on.

_Take her, take her._

"Come here…Just come here…" he says quietly as if it were completely natural, throwing down all pretence. The inevitable result of them here, alone in this house. As if normalcy, domestic bliss was in the charts for them. Her; _nodding now_. And her smile as she takes a few steps towards him, a sad little smile. Hands wiping nervously at the top, as if swiping away some imaginary crumbs from her stomach.

"I'll tuck your smug head into your ass if you try anything funny."

"That's just plain rude Freckles, and it sure ain't part of the good old Southern tucking in… Come here, I'll teach you all about it…"

A conman after all, he's used to faking it. But impossible now. _Impossible._ Drops his cigarette on the floor, fumblingly stubbing it out with the heel of his shoe. And before he has time to catch his breath she gets up besides him, quick and sly, stealing by and settling on the inside, right behind him. A whiff of jasmine or magnolia and he chokes, _shit. _Something, he doesn't know what, reminding him of a far off childhood. _Someone loving him. _He swirls his head around, almost giving himself whiplash, watching her slump down there, next to him. The red slinky top, sliding up a little.

"I can't sleep in there…" Meek and a little despondent, and so unlike her. Honestly, it throws him. Like admitting defeat. That's the way it feels like and he isn't sure he likes that about her. Wants her to fight. Wants her silly, obstinate bravery. Wants her quick sharp retorts, her sarcastic come-backs.

"Sure, like I said; you _just_ have to ask..." he says giving her his best leer. Mostly just to bring back the fight in her.

"Not sex James. Just sleep." She snaps as if she means business, and just the way she says it all brusque and cool makes it impossible not to think of it. Wants her. _Wants her._

"Last thing on my mind Sweetcheeks…" he lies. Sitting there, he swiftly leans towards her and watches amused as she tenses up, as if she's expecting him to pounce on her. "Just giving you a hand, is all… and no, not that kind of hand… no sex, remember…"

Loves the little grumpy poke of the tongue, sniggering as he grabs hold of her feet, bringing them nearer to him, pulls off her shoes and drops them with a loud thud on the floor beneath. His own following shortly. Tugging the thin fabric that serves as a mosquito net closed around them. The two of them, side by side, very sibling-like, with a decent distance between them on that bed. Him, wavering between the wanting to fuck her and the wish to just curl up with her and sleep forever.

"Thank you," curt and sweet as an almond cake. Wants to just pour raspberry sauce all over her and eat her up.

"Hell if you could only stop bugging me, I'd like to catch a few winks. If you don't _mind Pumpkin'_?" he says sullenly, badly faked annoyance.

"Don't mind at all. Goodnight James," she says and that's that. She turns around. Turns her fucking back to him. One arm wedged under her head. Dark waves spread behind her as if carefully arranged like that. Makes him want to touch it, remembering how it can be. Silky soft after a dip at the waterfall or coarse from the salt of the ocean.

He's left feeling like a fool. What had he thought might happen? A goodnight kiss maybe? Something innocent that would inevitably turn into something else, the mere vicinity of her, able to turn tepid into scorching within seconds.

_Better like this._ Better like this.

_No - hell no. It's torture, pure torture. Sayid with all his little bamboo toothpicks would bow his head in shame. _Ought to be forbidden to flirt like that with a man and then throw in the cold shoulder. Inhumane, that's what it is. He watches her as the curve of her back turns increasingly convex, the knobbly ridge of her spine visible through the thin red fabric. Her shoulder, a little hard but rounded. Wants to lean over and place a kiss there. Freckled skin, smell of sunshine.

_Get a grip, _he thinks,wondering why it has to be so fucking hard.

He can't sleep yet. Can't lie here all worked up, watching her little hard back in that hostile u-shape, staring at her like a love-sick fool. The dip of a waist, that gentle slope swelling upwards, becoming hips. Probably lying there wide awake too, beating herself up for the thing with Danan_. Wants her._ Wants her so bad he feels bile rising in his throat.

He's a man that takes, claims what he wants.

_But with her. Can't afford to._

Someone is playing music nearby, one of the neighbours, the one with a penchant for oldies'. Billie Holiday's - _'I'm a fool to want you' - _spilling out into the sizzling Balinese night. Almost surreal, what with the fragrance of incense and the exotic garden around them, palm trees and the delicious smell of roasted pork_._ The croaking of frogs, happy for the rain, bringing him back to his childhood, a clammy Southern night in another life. And it makes him smile to himself.

The pathetic state of him.

Part of him thinking that he has to give her time, has to be patient. But the other part, the one that isn't dumb as a doornail and isn't floating on goddamn rose petals with a bunch of sparrows chirping happily in his ears, he screams an univocal; _**let go!**__ She'll never be able to. She can't. Can't love you back you fucking moron!_

_- 'I'm a fool to want you'-_

He is. The goddamn song as if written for him. Old Billie and him would have a good deal in common he reckons. Sentimental fools, both of them.

It's not as if he's got a romantic bone in his body. _**He doesn't.**_ Not as if he sees his goddamn unborn children in her eyes or as if he's banking on some kind of sugar-coated happy ending, for that matter. The _grand gestures_, and love declarations, that's Jackass' speciality and he doesn't give a rat's ass for all that. But he's lost. Completely lost with her. The way he is and has _always_ been; completely and mortifyingly smitten by her. That simple fact that changes _**everything.**_ A tender spot for her that wipes the whole '_James Ford book of dating-and-fucking-rules'_ squeaky clean. He has nothing to go with, no guidelines to follow, fumbles along blindly. _Knows nothing of this._

What to do when it's genuine. Real.

_- 'I'm a fool to want you_

_To want a love that can't be true' -_

_Crap._ Just what he needs, lying here with his pounding heart and the lust that makes his stomach churn.

Just a hint of her cheek visible from behind, an ear and a little stretch of her neck. Wants to scoot closer, wants to put his lips there, push his nose against her skin. Almost hallucinating, imagining his hands reaching around her, in under the top. Her buttermilk warmth underneath. Dreams of her giving in, yielding, turning around to him softly, snaking her arms around him. Lips tasting like vanilla and dark chocolate.

And _oh crap_!

His galloping mind already shedding her clothes already licking a question across her breasts. Already nudging her legs open. _Jayzus! _

_What the hell is wrong with him?_ He heaves himself up sitting, doesn't quite trust himself. Shit, able to give himself a hard-on, dream up a daydream out of nothing. _Absolutely nothing._ Nothing happening here and nothing will happen either. Shoves the mosquito netting to the side, swings his legs over the edge and sits up. A bit dizzy, though he really hasn't drunk that much and furious with himself for letting his damn mind wander into these dark and steamy alleys.

_**Fuck. It**_.

Shouldn't have to be this hard. _Wants her. Wants her._ The vodka bottles still on the table. Not so cold any more and he grabs the one nearest to him. Unscrews the cork and takes a large swig. Might as well get _properly _drunk. No way is he getting any sleep otherwise. Not with her lying there behind him. The anxiety that brings on an exasperating nervous tic, a tiny muscle in his hand twitching as he sits there trying to keep his fingers still around the bottle. Trying not to look at her, trying not to reach for her.

Watches the bats, chase some imaginary delicacy, swooping in so close at times, he feels a rush of air against his hair. Sits there dangling the bottle by it's neck between his fingers, smoking as if it's his last day on earth.

_**Shit.**_

Damn Billie and her soulful voice exacerbating the sharp pain of it_. She_, lying motionless behind him. Can hardly see her breathing. _Bet she ain't sleeping either_. Envisioning reaching around, tugging her near. Sliding his lips from chin to belly. But these are all figments of his imagination and hasn't he had enough with the fucking dreaming, enough of holding back and hankering after her. Look where it's gotten him - _**absolutely nowhere**_. He's still smoking and drinking, alone on a freaking porch in Bali. _Alone, _even with her - _here - _right beside him. Still as distant, as remote as if she'd been on the other side of the globe.

_He's so screwed._

Slams the bottle on the table, puts out his cigarette and slumps back on the bed, pulling the thin gauze-like fabric down around it as he falls there again. Right back where he started. Glaring at her spine bent like a bow. Fingers itching to touch her, to follow the narrow column from neck to ass. Eyes burning into the back of her head. _Hating her. Loving her._

* * *

That's when she rolls around, completely. Ending up on her side facing him instead. Bringing her a little closer to him too. As he thought, _not sleeping at all_.

His moral compass that busts its needle as Billie hits the last notes of the refrain. Crushing his last resolve, the music, the humid air, the fragrance of frangipani blossom. _Fuck_, it's a lethal combination. One he can't withstand. Her eyes so bright and clear in the soft light from the porch lamp; they almost glimmer pistachio green.

_-'I know it's wrong, it must be wrong'-_

Damn Billie do hell and back! Breathlessly watching her. _Come here_. He wants to say. _I'll make it better._ _Won't hurt you. Ever._

"Stop staring." _Snappity snap._

"What makes you think I'm looking at you," he drawls, making his eyelid heavy, sliding them down to half cover his eyes. Wants to look sleepy and disinterested but he reckons he ain't fooling anyone. The way the slinky red fabric drapes over her breasts, the stretch of skin visible underneath the hem.

"Whatever you're doing. Just stop it," she says but her tone tells him, she doesn't mean it. It falters at the end. Has no weight.

"You can always turn right back around if you don't like it baby." Challenges her and sees to his surprise how something shifts. Her turn to lie there and gaze back at him. Biting her lip, the tip of her tongue, darting out, the moisture of her mouth. _Shit._ Her eyelashes quavering, eyes flittering, from his face down to his hands and back again.

_Oh, what's with the playing coy tonigth?_

Stubbornly keeping his hands to himself. Willing her to take the first step. Has to be her. _Lady's choice and all that Southern gentleman crap his momma' never got the chance to teach him_. While she say's _nothing_, just keeps looking at him and it has his nerves snagging against his heart. _Shit._ Wants to shout at her. _Take me for fucks sake! _Can't wait much longer.

"What?" he snarls and it comes out sounding unnecessarily harsh. It's just that he's so incredibly uncool, so entirely thrown off course by this… He's just so hungry_. For her. _And everything is wrong about that.

_Everything. _

"Okay…." She says out of the blue as if a grave decision has been taken. Her eyes on his, uncompromising, determined, cheeks soft, inviting. Her hair, too long, too messy, all over, around her head. And he wants to drive his fingers through it, bury his face in it.

_Is this her coming on to him or picking a goddamn fight?_

"Okay?" he repeats, aggravated and riled by the way she just lies there, staring at him as if he should know _fuck-all_ what she wants, trying desperately to quell, or at least control the physical need for her. Trying to do the right thing, _goddammit. _" Okay _**what**_? Okay to world peace or to gluten-free spaghetti or all male cheerleading? Okay to _**what**_ Honeypie!"

"Okay," she repeats more pointedly, as if he's supposed to be able to make something out of that. As if she's challenging him for a wrestling match, a duel, _damned_ if he knows. The instant image of her and him stomping off in opposite directions with loaded pistols. It makes him smile, tugs the edges of his mouth right up into a big stupid grin. _She. She is something else. _Absolutely, undoubtedly one of a kind. _Fucked_-up for sure, a total mess. But as if made for this. _For him._

Loves her. A degrading, infuriating kind of love.

_She can't love you back. Can't.- Won't._

But he doesn't want to listen to the doubt, to the frightening logic of it. It's always there but he won't let it near him now. Not tonight. _She's so close._ Knows that temper of hers, she won't stand for this much longer, that vertical line already deepening between eyebrows.

"Well….okay… do you mean... okay…?" he baits her. A muscle in her cheek, that little give-away spasm. Will blow her top soon enough, and he can't wait. He can almost taste her irritated heat, her frustrated passion already, the anticipation of how she'll be. Hopes she'll forget all about the rest, forget that she is sad and attack him. There is a paradoxical potential in getting your ass whopped by her. Always a chance it might end up in a fierce, incensed kiss. Or more.

"You said I just have to ask…" openly pissed. Sullen face, a little humiliated pout, seriously peeved by now. And him, positively triumphant. _Well I'll be damned,_ he thinks. _**She asked.**_

"Yeah, well, correct me if I'm wrong; I ain't heard you ask…_'Okay'_!... _**That's**_ how you ask for _sex_?"

"Just _**stop**_ it… Forget it…" she snaps, eyes a little wounded and makes to move, fed up with his games, a bit embarrassed and out of her element. Makes to roll back on her other side again. But that can't happen. His hand that shoots out, grabs her shoulder, Preventing her. Soft skin under his fingers.

"Just messing with you… " But the joke is on him. This affliction he has, the tragedy of falling for her.

"Just…don't be an ass okay…?"

The glimpse of her green eyes, beneath dark lashes. Approaching her is like thinking it's a great idea to go skinny-dipping in shark infested water, all greased up in barbecue sauce. He plays tough but her sweetness, the way she's got him wrapped around her little finger – he can't do anything about that.

"Happy to oblige darling… since you have such excellent manners" he says. The cockiness; through and through fake. The pulse, throbbing in his own ears.

_Take her, take her, __**take her**__. _

Watching to his surprise how she suddenly yawns. Actually frigging yawns, her face, freckled childish nose just a few inches away from him. A cute, tiger-like little yawn that she doesn't bother covering up.

"Please…Sawyer…" she says in a way that he doesn't recognize, the blazing sincerity of her. A delicate shimmering smile and he braces himself, wondering what kind of sophisticated logical analysis is applied to determine when he's _'Sawyer'_ and when he deserves a _'James'._

"Well ain't you the sweet one tonight?" Pretending cool and impervious to the sight of her there, palm sliding up and down her shoulder and her upper arm, wanting to travel elsewhere. Her own hand, edging across, sweeping sideways up the side of his neck, contradicting the cold retort. Quick small fingers sliding up and behind his ear. _Ah,_ _aaw,_ and he's just like an old dog. He just liquefies. Cocks his head towards her hand, wants rub up against it.

It can't be helped. Maybe he scoots closer or maybe she does, he isn't keeping scores anymore. Too distracted by the way her top slides up another inch and how it seems to invite his hand inside. _And oh crap. _His fingers that travel from the curve of her waist up to her ribs. Her "Sawyer" making him weak.

"This is quite a change for someone that wadn't expecting nothing from me?.." he mumbles, her face so near now.

"Just shut up…" she says and he relishes in the irresistible way she wrinkles her nose at him. Provocative and pacifying at the same time. Stupidly turned on by the way she inhales sharply as his fingers make their journey upwards, central line, between her breasts, brushing by her cleavage. All that silky, dewy skin waiting for him to explore.

"Yes ma'm…"

"Bastard…"

Unable to wait a second longer, he hooks a hand behind her neck, narrow and frail behind the hair. Bringing her close to him. _Tired of waiting._ Swaying and faltering. Tired of thinking. Maybe he's drunk. Maybe he shouldn't do this, but he can't help it. Her mouth that finds his, the fervid agony of the two of them together. The taste of spices on her from the food. Doesn't care, _he ain't fussy_. Her lips, succulent, juicy and wanting for more.

_You're mine. Mine. _

_He'd imagined her like this. _Had dreamt of her, for three long years. Lying there in bed besides Juliet at night, not able to sleep for the assault of those memories. Knowing damn well it wasn't right, telling himself it was nothing. _Just sex. Just the memory of a girl._ Convincing himself that what he had was better. And surely it was, the harmony with Juliet, surely more worthy than any quick angry thrust brought on by jealousy. Surely, their steady soothing closeness was more than any delirious embrace, any clammy night in his shoddy tent could ever be.

_But her here, now. _

Thinking that _**nothing **_couldn't possibly be more real than a freckled nose pushed into the crook of a neck. More genuine than a 'Sawyer' suspired over and over again, feverish lips against a pulse. Nothing could be more true than that.

The rain falling harder around them now, picking up speed. The comfort of splattering water on the roof above them. The heavy smell of fertile wet earth mixing with the nectar of her. The smell of soap and newly washed laundry intermingle with her own fragrance. The undertone, _the one that screams of woman. _As if she'd been composed for him, to smell exactly right. As if someone had combined just the right ingredients, for him.

"Okay…?" he mumbles, breaking away from her a little, holding himself up on his arms. Because, _hell, he has to come up for air._ Her eyes heavy and sensual, lips a little swollen, staring at him as if he means something to her. Her fingers sweeping away his hair from his face. Both of them breathing shallowly, who gets off on who, it isn't clear. Lifts up the edge of her top, just a little. Forgetting to tease her, the all-consuming allure of her taking over everything_. It's too late to stop now. Shit, shit._ He's waited so long for this.

_So damn long_.

The sight of that funny little rounded belly she's got, the only spot that isn't pure muscles and nerves. The way it slopes downwards, towards her jutting hipbones. The desire for her, agonizing, demanding, flaring up with a urgency that has him forgetting to breathe. Moves down, her neck her chest, the target in sight further down.

"Okay,' she says, gulping in air as he slides his lips across that sweet stomach of hers, just as he'd imagined. It unnerves him the way he feels for her. It always does but especially now. Wants it to be more than a fuck, more than a quick breathless fumbling thrill. The perversion of his love, equal measures heart and dick.

_Innocence and corruption in perfect balance._

_Hell _– he wants so much more, it's insane. The fact that _he, the other man,_ is the last one she was with, it rips his confidence to pieces. He knows it's juvenile as hell, that old rivalry still eating at him. The wanting to completely expunge, annihilate, and stomp out any trace of lingering feelings she might have for the Doc.

Wonders if she compares them. Can't help obsessing about it.

It's just sex, that's all she's asking for. It's not rocket science for god's sake and it sure isn't unfamiliar territory for him. He's an experienced man. _A disgustingly experienced man._ _Heck,_ he knows all the tricks in the book. But it's nothing but frippery, meaningless, pretentious display. He's a big fucking oaf and he knows _fuck all _about this.

_Zilch._

His miserable bleeding heart on the line. _Virgin land, unconquered_. A total novice to the onslaught of genuine affection for her and how to combine it with his usual slick, sleazy repertoire. The one he uses to make women fall in love with him. To hand over all of their savings, The one that inevitably cumulates in sweaty, sticky skin and a moaned; _'you're incredible Sawyer!'._

Wants it to be different with her. But he knows no other way. He's a vulgar old prick and he does the only thing he knows. _Hoping it will be enough._ Buries his nose in the inconceivably ambrosial fragrance of her skin, there just below her belly button. Hoping that it will be enough, that he will be enough to make her…

_Fall in love with him._

Like walking into a casino with all of your life's savings in your pocket and a gambling addiction on your shoulder. He knows already that he will bet _everything _and loose it all before the evening is over. But it's a compulsion. Not as if he's got a choice.

Delighting in the sensation of the smooth cold metal buttons of her trousers under his fingers, slipping them open, one after another... Fingertips right inside her waistband. Watches how her stomach tenses up, thinking it's in anticipation. _ And shit._ Looks up to find her face, falling apart completely. Bottom lip looking frail and as if it's about to go into a quiver. The thin surface of stoicism that she's maintained so heroically all day long just reduced to pieces. Pulverized. _The disappointment, consuming him._

"You gotta' be kidding me… Those better be tears of passion Freckles…" he mumbles incredulous at the sight of her, grudgingly pulling himself up and away from the business at hand.

_Shit._

What is it about him that makes her cry? Crawls up above her. Her eyes closed now, she doesn't want him looking at her. _Like this. _Envelops her completely in a hug that he knows is too intrusive, too tight. The desperation that makes him hold her too hard, lie too heavily across her. The hard-on almost painful, but that can be dealt with. A quick hand job or a swift cold shower. But _this_, his fruitless longing for her, the never getting any closer. It tears him apart, it makes him hang on too tight. There's no easy remedy for that.

"I have...have nothing…now…" Her words sad and heavy against his neck.

"You got me."

_Fucking good it will do her,_ but she does. _She's got him. _

"They're gone… "

"Oh hell Kate... I know, I know… Shit, I'm an ass… I didn't mean to… Come here, come here…come…" he mumbles even though she's right there, not going anywhere if he can help it. Doesn't know what to say, he a man of words, can't find any.

Hushing her like a baby. He should have known this wasn't the time. For all their flirting and playing. For all the pretended lightness today. _He's such an ass._ Such a big dick for just thinking this was a day that should end with a quick roll in the hay. _And to hell with it all._ He really hadn't wanted to think of it on his part, but he sure as hell ain't gonna' be the asshole who screwed her after a day like this. Doesn't want to be an expression of her desperation, an outlet for her guilt and self-hate.

Her sadness, it breaks him apart too. He's not strong enough for this. Not strong enough for her. _Hypersensitive to her limitations. _

And she does that oddly unnatural thing she does, when she cries soundlessly. And he doesn't like women crying, never could stand it. But this thing she does, it's just so aberrant, such an anomaly. He can feel her jaws clenching against his cheek. _Stifling it. _Swallowing it all up. Wants to tell her to let go. _To cry like a fucking baby if she needs to._ If that'll make her feel better. Kisses her, kisses her eyes, her lips her cheeks. But not the way he's ever kissed a woman. _No._ Affectionate, gently and sloppily. Big wet kisses, like you kiss a child. Like the big unfinished child he knows her to be.

And he finds to his astonishment that he doesn't mind it too much. How the desire gives way to this, a_ strange kind of intimacy_, having her cling to him, press her face against his. Doesn't mind at all when her hands find their way around his neck. This is new. How she doesn't shove him off, doesn't beat him away or pummel him with hard little fists. _This is new._ And though he isn't exactly sure if he can say it's a good thing, he is stupidly proud of it, of her and him. As if he; _big dumb dunce_ _that he is_, has the slightest clue about how to alleviate her pain. This unexpected trust, this offer that just seems too good to be true.

_Something new opening up. _An unchartered land. The way she seeks consolation from _him, _the way since last night, since all the horrible things have happened. It's him and her. Somehow. Trembling and insecure and a little lost but still. And he doesn't get it. It's not as if he deserves any of it. _Enough to make an old cynical jerk like him faint._ He's has never been a great believer in karma and all that hippie bullshit, at least he's never wanted to admit to it. But what happened back then, on the island. Her, sneaking into his tent. The suspicion, the dirty realization that perhaps she was using him. It had occurred to him that maybe it was nothing more than cosmic payback for all those women he'd screwed over. But if that was the case, _what the hell is this?_

The way she lets him. Just hold her like that. The curls that make his chin itch, her breath a bit too hot, too clammy against him. But he doesn't move an inch. Doesn't understand any of it, the bizarre imbalance of the universe but he grabs it. Takes this little deviation from her runs with it.

And the rest, so far from anything he'd ever dared to hope, so far from anything he deserves. An impossible, unobtainable dream. _About a hundred-to-one chance that they'd end up like this. _Yet, here they are, unthinkable as it is. The way the two of them lie there wrapped up in each other listening to the soft rain around them. How she slowly lets go, slowly softens up and how she finally falls asleep like that. Her head on his shoulder. This woman that hardly deserves that name.

_Still. That's exactly what happens_.

They sleep, fully dressed. Next to one another. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. They didn't fall apart. _Didn't fall at all._ Just a little stumble, him catching her or if it was the other way around. A night that doesn't end in disaster.

Ending instead in a heart so full, it could easily implode on him.

* * *

_To wake up like this. _Puzzled by the flutter of fingers, gasping and whirling closer together. Confused by heartbeats, suddenly mounting, climbing whilst still half asleep.

_A morning like this._

Dazed by the tenderness and the murmur of lips, kissing each other awake. The lull of fingers and legs wounding tightly against one another. And it could be a dream, might just be. Somewhere in that hazy twilight between dreaming and waking up.

The rustle of clothes being kissed to the side, whisperingly caressed away, loved off and discarded. Buttons that slide open one after another until they lie there bewildered and a little restless. The humming and buzzing of skin against skin. Hands slipping, sliding, gliding, an unconscious yearning to get near. The way they roll, drowsily and subdued. Fingertips and lips, sweet and mellow. A perplexing desire growing out of nowhere, stirring, awakening. And as the morning sun peeks in, seeps through trees and leaves, filtered to a luminous silvery glow by the mosquito netting – _she doesn't question it._

_Lets him. In._

Out here, in the open, in this little quaint place. Unshielded and vulnerable. Lingering misty air and a breeze from the nearby ocean stroking skin. Yawns that turn into kisses, translucent and honest. Limbs stretching lazily, catlike. Surprised unintentional smiles, breaking through their hazy cocoon. The way his hands peel off her clothes. _Peel_. There is no other word that describes what he does. He doesn't yank, doesn't tug. He slides his hands close, close, shaving, skimming so near, so close to the surface of her skin; leaving the fabric no choice but to give way, slide off, roll away. Vaguely aware of him doing the same thing with her trousers and her underwear and she knows she ought to stop him_._ But she's still too drowsy, too deep down into that cottony half sleep, she can pretend she's dreaming it all up.

Doesn't quite know how this happens, so fast. And _oh_, he's good at this, the shredding clothes, his and hers at a dizzying speed, the stroking her face with his nose, with his lips, with his cheeks. The tangerine zest of a warm mouth, a flicker of it only, across the tips of her breasts. The colour red spreading through her, like a drop of ink in water. Radiating through her, setting her ablaze down there. _And the hands, the hands._ Making her skin cry out. Warm, large and imploring, advancing, running up her legs. The nudge, gentle but not the kind you can say _'no'_ to. _Not the sort you want to say no to._ As if he's in charge of her now. As if he can do whatever he wants with her.

_And oh, _he can. He can.

The way his mouth mumbles and murmurs against her, that language he knows so well. Fizzy and effervescent. She squeezes her eyes shut, but she can't pretend to be asleep any longer.

The fingers, _the fingers_.

Smoothing upwards, steadily, excruciatingly slow. And then outwards, outwards, spreading her out. Just as he wishes. The shutting of eyes only heightening the sensation of his short stubble, rasping against her inner thigh. His breath claiming her and the way he exhales, breathes out hard over her, it shocks her. Tries to pull away. Too much. The sensation of his mouth. His hands on her hips as she tries to escape it.

A silent;_ 'no, you're going nowhere'._

Cheeks flushed hot and shameful. Refusing to open her eyes. The urge to cover up, her hands flitting, fidgeting, squirming. Trying to get away from his mouth, his breath on her, his power. Retain some self control.

"Hey…you got no reason to be coy… lemme' look at you..," he says huffily. Words to be obeyed. Words to succumb to. _Oh._ Her hands in his hair, silky, and stringy at the same time. Wants more and _she wants it to stop_. And she can't speak, can't say anything now. As if her voice has been taken, can't be used for a reply other than a sigh or a gasp. His eyes clamorous and arousing, stroking her, dipping into crevices trawling over curves. Elaborately painting her skin. The craving, _too poignant_.

It's too bright here, out on the porch. What with the sunlight grabbing at her, licking at her skin. Wants to draw him near her, wants his bulk covering her. Wants the safety of hiding her face in his skin, at the crook of his neck. _This, this is too much. _The way her body betrays her, the shockwave of heat that swells within, his fingers joining his mouth, making it impossible to hold back.

"There ain't _**nothing**_ wrong with you…"

_How does he know exactly what to say?_ And though everything is wrong with her. _Everything._ She gives into him, to the sleepy tenderness, the pleasure that he offers, stretches out beneath him and pushes the discomfort away.

_Wants him. Wants him._

Soft fingertips, his manicured nails. _This is why he does it. _This curious attention to detail, this strange vanity of a man that is so overwhelmingly unrefined, so singularly masculine. It's peculiarly touching to think that he did that for _her_.

The strokes of him against her, and she _c_an't take it much longer. _It's been so long, s_o many years. She'd forgotten, what he does. But then again, it was never like this before. This frightening softness. The way he raises himself up, kissing a path across her belly, her chest all the way up towards her neck. Salty sea on his skin, the ocean in his voice. The arms, thick columns of sinew and muscles, making her reach for them. All caramel pecan, the Southern sun in him. Draws her hands up and down, the smooth surface of his skin, sun-kissed and warm. The percussion of their hearts pressed together, pulse accelerating. It's been so long.

_It was never like this._

His hands that come up to her face, one big palm on each of her cheeks. Her hands finding his, encircling his wrists near her own face. Holding onto him like a drowning person, a sense of desperation. _Take this. Don't be disappointed._

_ It's all there is. _Just this.

The way he leans down and kisses her, open-lipped and sleepy. Unguarded and generous. Washing away that trepidation, the fear of not being enough. Mouth grazing her face. Brushing her eyelashes with his breath, following the outline of her lips. The faint smell of sex in the air, on him. His fingers against her jaw line, stroking her cheeks. _Maybe she can. _Maybe they can be. Like this. That astonishing combination of boyishness and masculinity. His hair falling forward, tickling her face. His illegible murmuring against her skin like a verbal kind of foreplay. _And she feels it then._ The way he loves her. Or the woman _he_ thinks she is. A torrential, imprudent affection for her that she isn't worthy of. Wants so desperately to be that woman, the one that gives in to him. The one that is able to.

"Stay… with… me… " A deep guttural whisper buzzed against her lips. Hoarse and gruff as if he's just insulted her. And she might have imagined it but the way he freezes, pulls his head up above her after the words are out - confirms them. Paralyzing her. That guise of Sawyer that slips in a reckless moment. This man. Beautiful. He's someone else, exposed and tender, bruising easily. _Take this._ _Take me._

And if only she were enough, if she'd thought she could. She wouldn't have hesitated for a second.

His eyes, an absurd bashfulness, focused on her mouth. Expectant. Waiting for her to say something. Biting his lip. Sweat pearling off his forehead, his upper lip. _She can't_. And it kills her. The way she is. Stunted, _not enough_. She'll never be able to fulfil that hunger of his. The one that is deprived, needs constant affirmation, requires a steadiness, a certainty, a language she doesn't speak.

The only way she knows how to answer him without loosing everything. Drags him down towards her again, kisses him instead, a warm, yielding kind of kiss. Wraps her legs around his hips. _Don't pull away._ This is all there is. _Yours if you want it…_

_For what it's worth._

He enters her, as if he belongs there. _And he does_. He does.

* * *

He doesn't want to question it, not on a morning like this. Can feel it on her lips, on her fingers, on her skin. In the way she sighs under him. It's there. Between the gentle cadence of give and take. Heartbreakingly open and subdued, and a little sad as well.

_This is the girl giving in. To him._

The shy, gentle sunrays playing across them, naked limbs, embraced and vulnerable, wrapped in each other on the daybed. A soft breeze wafting in through the netting. Naked skin against the coarse cotton of the daybed. And while the world wakes up around them, children go to school, people pray, shower and make breakfast - _they make love_.

And he can't think of it in any other terms. Because that's what it is.

Different now. None of the frenzy and uncontrollable, muddling fever he associates with her. They move together, that dizzyingly slow pace, careful and cautious. So scared of hurting, of being hurt. He doesn't want to hold her too hard, doesn't want to overpower her. _It's not like that._ No one conquering or succumbing. The ebb and flow, the rhythm of them, everything is different. The perfection of their discrepancies. Small against large, soft against hard, wet against dry, dark against light. The only thing matching up flawlessly, their _fear._ Greater than the pleasure, greater than the hunger. The largest common denominator. For the two of them. _Perhaps the only one._

And he melts into her, can't think for the sensation of her around him.

"You…" she exhales, holding his fingers against her mouth. As if she wants him to hold onto that word. Catch its flightiness.

And he thinks; _that's enough_. It's brutal how that one word just pierces right through him. _As good as it gets with her. _It's enough, he can make do with that.

_Takes what he can get._

He has never seen her like this before. Like something he'd had in some fancy Turkish restaurant with a mark a hundred years ago. A dessert drenched, no; dripping in honey and sweetness, just like she now. Not in control. _Not running_. Still, she's got all the control in the world, nothing he can do about it. The way her thighs are clenched tautly around his hips, her hands smoothing up and down his shoulders and how her eyes don't let go. _Not for a second._

And he wants to ask her; '_is this what happens when the girl falls in love?' _

Is he what she wants? _And no,_ he can't think of it now, not with the flow, the surge building up. Slow, languid and so, so tender. Escalating. _Don't be scared. Don't let go._ Green eyes locked on his. A truth that can't be negated. She's water, air, just a flowing substance, nothing to hold on to. Nothing to hang your dreams upon.

But this time. This time she doesn't bite back, doesn't hide, doesn't hold it in.

An open-eyed fascination as they move, as she tenses up around him. It's honey and milk and fear. A poignant combination of caution and uncertainty. But so close now. He can almost feel her. _You. You. _The sweet, palpable waves of warmth around him. _Pulsating rawness. _The insurgence of sensations, too much, too soon.

The world coloured a bright clarion red behind his eyelids, and in his heart.

As she says his name.

_When she comes_.

Dazed, velvety, breathtaking. Shivering as if she's cold, the gasps. _His name._ His goddamn name, the _real_ one, whispered like a secret in his ear as she pulls him down to her. And nothing, _nothing_ can hold him back after that. Follows her quickly. Collapsing against her, inside of her, his forehead falling down on her shoulder. It's too fast, too short and he can't do anything about. Doesn't want to let go. Doesn't want this to pass.

_Stay. With me._

Helplessly linked, connected to her lying there in his arms. He can't bring himself to withdraw. Holds her against him, flat, the slickness of perspiration between them. Heat and wetness adjoining them still. Falling, stumbling, dropping 10 000 feet, not caring where he hits ground. _Or if_. Nothing to loose. _Nothing. _

The overwhelming urge to murmur it. To put his lips against her ear, to push away a few wisps of dark hair. _Love you, love you, love you. _

But he doesn't. _Can't._

Sated and warm and the kind of happiness that you can't examine to closely, lest it will fly away. Her, _here with him_. An innocent fresh-faced kind of shyness that has him reeling. Lips parted, as if permanently waiting for a kiss, shy, aberrantly timid. The flutter of eyelashes that would have been downright corny, hadn't he known her discomfort to be genuine. His hands spread as wide as they go, sprawled, wedged under her back. The softness of her breasts beneath his chest. Doesn't want to let go of her. Scared what will happen when they pull apart,when they have to speak again, put armours back on and cower behind masks again.

_Stay. Here._

And it's fucking ironic how this Karma stuff works. He's fettered by this. By her legs around him and his dick inside of this girl. _This girl._ Carelessly broken by someone, ripped up before she'd had time to grow, a chance to blossom. _Beyond repair and for what purpose?_ _To be his?_ A greedy, bitter sonofabitch who mauls things down for his own benefit, takes and destroys. Never gives anything back. This is what he gets. This wreck of a woman. His mess. _His. _

Knows that somehow, he's got to rise above, got to be stronger than her.

"Mmm, we do like the outdoors, ain't that so Freckles?…" Strikes a teasing tone, the alternative too daunting. The intimacy between the two of them, he knows it may be too much for her, it sure as hell is for him. Shook up and stupid in the aftermath. _Something so small. _How the hell can it mean so much? He's had sex with so many women, has said _'I love you' _to a good deal of them too, _if not all_. Likes to think that he knows a thing or two about this ;how to simply enjoy the ride. But never has he clung to a girl. Not like this. _Afraid to let go_. Never been such an emotional milksop. Never like this.

Though he tells himself; _she's just a girl for fucks sake. There are plenty of others. _

Right now, that seems like a lie.

"Late night, the shave, the manicure, the vodka… you're pretty sly…I give you that," she says touching the stubble on his chin with her lips, and he is ridiculously grateful for the lightness, the mockery, the kiss. The only bridge between intimacy and fear. And they both cling to that.

_Dangerous_, this, with her. He knows that. It's just that it's too late for him. Too damn late. That little square nose against him. Forces himself to withdraw from her, to prove that he's man not mouse, letting himself fall down on his side next to her. Fingers detouring stroking by her one last time as he says a little farewell. Wet and slippery, him and her, the way she puffs out her breath. Her sensory threshold at it's minimum, still open, exposed. He pulls his fingers back with regret, hooks his thigh across her, one arm behind her neck and one draped over her belly, nose in her ear. The chocolate curls, the smell of her, of morning and humidity, fertile and promising. Doesn't want to let go. Not now. Not after this. Scared she'll fly the coop. Scared it will all go away.

"You're a little rusty yourself… but we warmed you up nice and good didn't we? Pays off to play coy, huh Sweetpea?..."

Large teeth, that smile. Swooping in, sucking in his bottom lip in a naughty little movement.

"You planned this all along…, the 'I never', turning down Hurley's offer to stay at the Emporium..."

His fingers that write his claim all across her naked belly, signing off with a flourish around her breasts. High, round and perfect. All of her from chipped toe nails to messy dark curls, flawless.

_Are you mine now?_

"You planned it pretty well yourself Matahari…"

"What? No I didn't!" Indignant protests as he rubs her shoulder. Pale with a splatter of freckles, realizes that he's never lied with her like this in complete daylight. Unhurried. Safe. Well, almost safe. No bear cages or freaky captors. And not a doctor in sight as far as the eye can see.

"That red top, the drinking me under the table... You can't tell me that wasn't pure calculated seduction."

"Yeah, you're too easy… didn't take much…" Her mouth that follows the curve of his ear as she hoists herself on top of him. Her hair that falls down around them, a dark chestnut coloured curtain, shielding them from the world. Just as he was enjoying watching her, studying her from top to toe. The high breasts the skin, all smooth and even like something carefully airbrushed.

"Ain't I just … Hey Cupcake, you don't look too shabby in daylight… " Can't help it. It's enough to make him groan. And he might be a huge bumbling idiot for wanting _her_.

Like wandering into a car dealership, test-driving all of the gleaming, flawless new models only too turn around and fall head over heals in love with the dented piece of crap parked at the backdoor. Missing side-mirrors and a grill twisted like a coil. A funky door that doesn't open, windscreen cracked. An engine that never starts and if it does, will jump a mile and make you hit your teeth on the dashboard. _Still._ That's what he wants. _This. This mess._

The grinning against his mouth, so close, _so close._ They're almost there. _Almost._

The floodgate has been opened and they give in so easily now, can't endure the separation. Her obvious joy, her ruffled hair and the way she just glows. The satisfaction, that sated laziness; that's his doing. He did that – _to her_. It makes him relax. Perhaps they have passed onto something else. _Perhaps this is it._ She is suddenly different. Not so fearful, almost trusting him.

"You know if you miss the old tent… We can always spread some sand right here and pretend… if you're feeling nostalgic that is..? " The butterscotch sweetness of her mouth, that veiled sensual magnetism, and hell, he can almost go another round. It doesn't take much to bring him back again.

She mock punches him on the arm, managing to do it without even breaking off the kiss.

"So, you and me… "

_Shit. Shit_. Like a tongue-tied teenage geek, stuttering against her mouth. Doesn't even know what he wants to say. Except for asking; _is this it? Are you mine now?_

"Schh…" But it's all a sham, the way she kisses him, trying to shut him up. Sweet tongue wedging open his lips. Her hands that reach behind his neck, winding themselves into his hair.

"So, what's this Kate?... What the hell are we doing?" he says it gruffly, making it sound more like an affront than a question. His hands smoothing back her hair over her forehead, bringing her face upwards, away from his. Has to look at her. She snakes her way out of it somehow, bends her head down to lean on his forehead. The tickle of her breath on his face. Say something. _Does she want this? Him?_

"You already know…" she mumbles and he guesses - that's as good as it gets with her. _Let it go. Let it all go._ This is what you'll get with her. As close as she will ever let you. And he should just relish in it. The meagre pickings. Take them and run with them. _And he wants to. Wants to._ The immense victory of this. Of the two of them like this.

"So what's next on the agenda ladybug?" he can't help asking, wants to add; _for you and me_, but he can't. _He's a big first-class coward._ Kisses her right between those green eyes on the bridge of her nose. _Loves this._ Ashamed that he can be so damn happy when Claire and Aaron are still gone and _she _ought not to have forgiven him so easily for it.

"Coffee," she whispers, though there is no reason for them to keep their voices down. Perhaps the humming of intimacy requires it, _demands it_. That clown-like smile that's just too wide, too toothy to be attractive and still just is - perfection. "We'll make a fresh pot of coffee and we'll sit here on the porch and pretend…" She doesn't finish the sentence but he knows. _Pretend that it could be like this._ That all is fine in the world and that they could be like this. Doesn't want to think of what comes next, doesn't want to worry right now.

And he may be a damn fool, but right now, he's a happy fool.

"Yeah, well, I ain't pretending. Come along then Martha Stewart, let's get that pot boiling.

_Can die a happy man now._

They hear the cries of one of the neighbourhood's ambulatory salesmen as he passes outside in the alley, peddling his goods, breakfast porridge, banana's or whatever it is. And she draws away from him, slowly and reluctantly.

"I'm hungry. I'll get some clean clothes, lets get some breakfast," she says pressing one last little kiss on his lips making to rise up from the daybed. He tugs her back. Arms around her waist, pulling her against him, fingers sliding up just beneath her breasts, as if to test the weight of them. His nose behind her ear. And he can't believe it. The light bubbling atmosphere of the two of them. As if this is the easiest thing in the world. As if she's someone else, not crippled, not damaged. _Just a girl._

"Don't worry Sweetcheeks, lemme' get them for you. You just lie here all _nekkid_ and sweet and patient and I'll be right back."

He'll make her come again before breakfast he vows to himself as he scrambles to get up. A little dizzy, a little unsteady, unused to the light-hearted happiness between them here this morning. Shiny, shimmering, hopeful. Yesterday, her loss seemingly put aside, they don't dare mentioning it now.

"Yeah, okay. They're in the bag, I haven't unpacked yet." Looking back at her as she throws herself back against the daybed, gloriously naked all over. Deliciously unabashed, a different girl. She is a survivor or more likely, she's damn good at keeping the melancholy at bay. Will thread lightly now. Learn not to assault her with too much truth, too much reality, dish it out in small portions. _Let her shield behind her happiness. Let her._

He leans down for his clothes, yanks his jeans up over his ass with some difficulty, not bothering with the boxers, letting them lie in a pile on the floor together with her things.

…..

He unzips her bag, marvelling at the state of it. Dusty and dirty and barely hanging together at the seams. Digs in to the mess of her stuff, obviously just shoved in there in a hurry, dirty clothes mixed with clean ones. His fingers against something soft. Draws it out, and it takes a little before he realizes what it is and what it means. The willow green blanket, muddy and crunched into a ball.

_Fuck._

And he knows what this is. _She'll go back_. She'll go back to that damned island. _She won't stay. With him._ She'll go chasing after them, she'll use it as an excuse, to run from him. Doesn't know exactly how he knows. _No that's not true_, he knows her. There are things he just knows about her. Probably even before she knows herself. _Clothes forgotten_. Lifts it up, brings it with him out on the porch, clasped in his hand. Suddenly angry. No, not angry, crushed, devastated in a way that is humiliating_._ _It all means nothing to her._ Or at least not much. He should have known. He _had _known. _Can't love you back you idiot._ How only a few minutes ago, he'd actually believed the tide had changed.

"You are _**not**_ going back." Knows the instant he says it that it's a mistake in itself. In her warped, farcical world, he's just made it so that she _**has **_to go back. _**Has to**_. Just because he told her _**not**_ to. That's how she works. He knows it, still cannot rear it back in. _Too late. _Cannot step back.

"What are you talking about? Sitting up on the daybed. Her hair messy as hell. Looking newly fucked and blushing all over, all that capriciously freckled skin. Brings the barely contained anger into a rage for some reason.

"_This_…" Even, unemotional tone. Holding the green fabric out, shaking it in front of him. The urge so great to throw it at her, sitting there playing dumb. And it takes all he's got not to shout. Becauses; _hell. Hell. _He knows she will. Probably's already having Hurley track down Ben Linus or some other creep to get them back there. But that's it. He can't go with her there. No way. Nothing is worth that. _Even this._

"You get _**that **_from a blanket?" The attitude snarky, not even shielding herself from him. But there is a hint of understanding there, a glint of flashing by. Hates that he knows these things about her. Knows how she works in her own fucked-up way.

"Yeah well, just call me Sherlock, darling. I _**know**_ you..." he hisses, deciding in an impulse that she's not getting the blanket back. He'll burn it. Burn her stupid relic. The useless things she clings to. Remembers that silly little airplane that she'd used to sit and gape at for hours. Hates that she is like this. Completely and utterly screwed-up.

"You _**don't**_… You don't know me at all. Give me that!" The belligerent flash of black in her eyes. Instantly up on her feet, taking the leap over the coffee table like a feline pouncing on a prey. Sweet girl gone as fast as that. Attacking him, wrestling him for it like an alley cat, all finesse, all of the soft curves and femininity gone. Oh hell, and if it weren't for the fact that he's so certain about this, that he _has to_ stop this; he'd have given in. Just because of the sheer quantity of girl and skin against him, and just because she looks stir-crazy, mercurial and on the brink of loosing it. Eyes wild and unreasonable. But he can't give in. _Can't._

"We're _**not **_going back to that hell hole!" He growls at her. Biting his teeth together to stop himself from roaring at her. _Knew it was too good to be true._ Still. It has him confounded, crazy with hurt. He can't even fight properly, what with her breasts brushing by his arm the overwhelming nudity of her. Can't hurt her. Won't.

"Give it to me!" voice breaking. He knows she'll cry if she doesn't get it back. Doesn't think he could stand it.

"You heard me… We ain't going back for them. They're gone Kate."

"_**I am**_. _You_ don't have to James."

_He knew it. _

Knew that was coming. Though it still throws him enough to loose his concentration, she snatches it from him. And he almost thinks she will snap him with it. Standing there, the upsurge of fury, breathing laboriously, so angry she has forgotten she's undressed and it makes him feel incongruosly protective of her. Wants to cover her up. The ambiguity of her, sensual and infuriating.

The way she looks at him, as if _he's_ betrayed _her._

He's only telling her what she has to hear. _Hell_, someone's got to. He's sure Hurley or Miles won't do it, will go along with all of her madness, with this obsession. Briefly wonders if Hurley has a thing for her. The lengths he's already gone for her throughout this. All the money, the risks, the bother just to help her out. He for one wouldn't have lifted a finger for a girl he'd known for a few fucked-up months, had he not had a great big hard-on for her.

_Fuck it. _

That it can fall apart as fast as this. From being almost _there _to nowhere. Wants to beg her to stay. Here with him, legs tangled together, forget everything. _Wants to play house_. But she won't give in, he knows that. That stubbornness she has. The love for her, a double-edged sword. Anyway you turn it, it's bound to cut you.

_Please stay._

"_Fine_," he gnarls, her face inches from his, the anger and the acute pain rumbling inside of him. "Because I won't. There is no way I'm going back there. You're on your own Kate."

"Fine!" she repeats with that pig-headed childishness. "Not like I'm asking!"

Feeling empty now that he's no longer inside of her. Like a part of him has been amputated. Looks out over the courtyard. The beauty, the blatant opulence of it seems taunting now. The trees dripping with frangipani blossoms, white and pink, raining flowers, drooping down on the stone pavement. Everywhere. The fragrance sweet and rousing and enough to make your throat tighten, but it's got nothing to do with _them_. _Ugly broken people. _Just guests here, just passing through.

_Shit, he is one pitiful son of a bitch._

And the thing is, that he can understand her obsessive behaviour. Can relate to the compulsion of packing the relic of a baby she'd loved into a bag. A sort of replacement for the real thing. _Hell yes_, after all he's the man that carried a goddamn letter around for thirty years. He can understand it and that's what drives him nuts, stomps out all hope.

"Just like old days huh Freckles? We fuck and you scram… enough to make a man sentimental… Pity you can't scamper back to Doc, that would just make this experience prefect." he says and he knows it's mean. But it hurts. It all hurts too much.

The way she jerks her chin up as if it's no skin off her nose what he does. _Back to that_. If this is not purgatory, he doesn't know what it is. She raffles for her clothes, just thrown there on the floor. Struggling with her underwear, wobbly, her breasts that bob in under a swathe of dark hair, bra dangling off her arm. That red-lipped pout that minutes ago was on his mouth, on his throat, on the curl of his ear.

Had thought. Had thought; _surely this is it._ Surely she is _his _now. Can't be any other way. Can't imagine another reality.

_Mine. You're mine._

But it doesn't make her his. He knows this. He can't say she's his, no more than he can put a claim on the air around them. Can only watch as she angrily pulls her top over her head, wavering one legged with one foot in her dark green cargo pants, fumbling, yanking furiously. He is not that important to her. Not _as _important. This morning, that he'd thought had changed everything. Rendering him thin-skinned and unprotected. _Stupid. _He's such an idiot.

The sound of the gate slamming open reverberating across the yard. He has time to think that if there is a god up there he must be laughing his ass off right now, because hell, there couldn't have been a worse timing for anything. _Ever._

Hurley barging through those dainty wooden gates with someone in tow. And at first he doesn't get it. He sees who it is, but it doesn't mean the nerves of his brain know how to make the connection to actually understanding it.

Kate's arm that flies across her chest, the instinct to cover up even though she's already dressed. The pitiful baby blanket clasped in her hand. He on the other hand is still half naked, jeans unbuttoned and the sight of the man following in Hurley's lumbering shadow through the bright sunny courtyard doesn't bring on the instinct to flee or cover himself. He just stands there, immobile trying to understand.

_It can't be. _He shouldn't be here. Can't be here. Not now.

_But it is._

The man walking behind Hurley. A wide expectant smile that dies away as he visibly processes the sight of them there.

_Perfect. Just fucking perfect._

...

* * *

_Okay, so phew... god, I'm especially nervous about this piece, (though I was with the last one too) something about hoping not to disappoint, especially after the awful finale. _

_( Luci, I would have loved to ask you to beta this – god knows it could have needed it - but due to the horrific length I just … argh it just felt too much to take advantage of you amazing offer ;- ) I will have to keep the word count down to a decent number… ) _

_The sex scenes; always tricky business. Don't want to write them too smutty and at the same time, I really don't like the 'perfect' ones either. Something about a few flaws and food flavour references that just... I hope you didn't hate it - and that it didn't bore you to tears. _

_So… Who's arriving with Hurley? _


	23. Another's girl

_Carte Blanche, Dela (glad it made you want to see Indonesia ; -) ), Jess, Gabism, modernxxmyth, Scotty (yes you are right as always…who else but the good D?), Trapped in a Matchbox, Phoebsfan, tsol, Rain, HeartInCage, Gabardine, Yema, CarolynneRuth, Saward, tianlys, Simsi – Thanks so much for still reading and leavings such wonderful reviews. You won't believe how excited I am everytime I get one._

_And an apology if one of the characters seems greatly out of character. I just need him to be for the sake of the story. _

_Rated M: for a fair deal of swearing and sexual references_

_Disclaimer: not mine, none of it._

* * *

**Another's girl**

* * *

_Karma_, he thinks. Because _**never**_ can he get just a little piece of her without having it ripped away the very next second. _Never._

And he has fornicated his way through a good part of the South and the Midwest too, used up more women than there are days in a year, so no doubt he deserves all that comes his way. And it doesn't matter that he really doesn't believe in all that hippie baloney, he still puts his faith in some kind of cosmic pay-back.

But _damn, _it's frustrating. He was so close this time. Could almost touch it._ Him and her._ Could almost believe that there was something there, something worth fighting for.

And here _he_ comes. _The other man._

How his first impulse is to drive his fist into the his face, this man who's stepping awkwardly through the gate. A fine line between brute and human. The primal possessiveness that grips him by the throat. Like taking a large wrench, forcing it across your neck and twisting it as far as you can. _Effectively stopping all airflow._

_Not now. _Not now, when she was almost his.

Her, standing there right next to him, all warm and freshly ravished. Looking like she's been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. The great chasm between them widening, splitting apart at the seams with a frightening speed as the other man approaches.

And it wouldn't have been so bad, if only he'd not fucked it all up like he always does. If only the last thing they'd said to each other before this man walked back into her life, had been something sweet, something mundane.

_Something about putting on the coffee pot._

"_**Just**_ perfect." He struggles with the words, because somehow, there isn't enough air out here.

"You… called him? Why… would you do that?" she whispers hoarsely as the two men make their way inside the courtyard, ducking under the heavy branches of the blossoming trees. And he can see how one might think _he's_ the perfect man, the way he moves towards them. Wants to tell her; _you're wrong, he's not the one._

"Just fucking perfect. Ain't you gonna' skid along and show him your precious blanket?"

Repulsed by this knee-jerk reaction, the insecurity he'd hoped was gone. The love for her intermingling with something dirty, something so ugly it ought never see the light of the day.

_He has to be better than this. _But shit. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

She doesn't even deign him with a glance. Just stuffs the green baby blanket half way into her pocket, so that it bulges unattractively out of the side of her cargo pants. Her naked shoulder brushing by his and the back of her hand near his own. Wants to grab hold of it, wants to entwine his fingers between hers. Wants to tell her, remind her.

_What happened here this morning was __**real**__._

But he's not so sure right now.

Because here comes _Prince bloody Charming_, that stiff awkward walk, stepping on the myriads of blossoms and flowers strewn across the stone pavement_._ Making his nerves twitch and his heart sink. _Just perfect._

"Well, _**howdy**_ Doc! Imagine you here!" he hollers. All senses suddenly attuned_, _cagey and wary. That archaic possessiveness. _She's mine. Back off. _Makes himself broader, larger, swagger more exaggerated. Primitive show of maleness, asserting his position. He walks slowly down the porch, moving just ahead of her while buttoning his flies, drawing it out, making a big display out of fastening his belt.

And he ought to be better than this. But he finds that he isn't. _Far from it._

Plasters on a big smug grin, stretching his arms out and folding his hands behind his head. Slowly moving his neck to loosen his muscles a little. The vision of sexual satisfaction, as if he's been up to all sorts of shenanigans. _Just screwed your girl Doc. How' bout that?_

"Hello there James,… Kate…" His rival nodding his dark head, shifty eyes taking in the scene in front of him.

_Deciphering the evidence._

His own state of undress and _her; p_ump lips a little swollen and chin chafed raw by his short stubble. _His_ stubble. _His mark on her._ Wishes he'd given her a big fat hickey, something more glaring. Something that couldn't be missed, even by a man unwilling to see what's right in front of him.

Though really, what is there to see? _Nothing._ They are nothing. He has just bulldozed down their little sprouting intimacy and she has just made another u-turn.

"Jack…what… what are you doing here?" She looks both bewildered and chagrined. _Just perfect_. Ashamed now. Sees how she swiftly straightens out her top and pats down her wild messy bed-head. She doesn't want him to know. And he feels like throwing up. The girl who just laid there in his arms with the sun on her skin and him inside of her._ Not his. _She'll never be.

_Bets she's still wet from him, still all sticky and sweet there underneath. _But that doesn't matter now. This morning, as if erased. _Null and void._

"Dude just showed up at the hotel this morning, how is that for a surprise? Should have told us you were coming, would've picked you up at the airport." Hurley looking especially dapper today. Ice-blue linen shirt, crisp ironed lines and his shiny, clean hair, in a tidy pony tail. Bouncy and ebullient as if they are all good old friends and this is a much awaited reunion of hearts. Which, _hell;_ it might very well be for _some_.

"Yeah, how 'bout that huh..." he grumbles. Sore looser, unable to refrain from it. The manly exchange of evaluating, suspicious glances. _Measuring._ That immature bastard inside of him thinking with glee as he greets Jack with a firm handshake: _This hand 's still warm from making her come. _

Hopes he smells of sex and happiness._ Damn well hopes he reeks of it, _because he feels anything but happy now.

Steels himself, expecting to have to stand there shuffling his big feet on the same spot, watching out of the corner of his eye how they envelop each other in a long warm embrace. _But there is none of that_. No hug, no private exchange of glances, nothing whispered quietly, affectionately in the other's ear. _Nothing._

The curt '_hello Jack'_ is all she throws him, standing there just hugging herself as if she's suddenly cold. _That's it._ Like dropping a penny on the ground for him to pick up. _Worthless. _

"So, imagine you here Doc… On holiday? Didn't figure you for the sunbathing type…"

"Yeah, well, just something… I had to do." Jack is subdued and mellow when he turns towards Sawyer and it aggravates him how he doesn't meet his eyes. Can't trust a man that doesn't look him in the eyes. Ludicrous coming from someone that lies through his teeth while staring you down. Effortlessly. The way Jack looks at her instead, longingly, he knows the feeling well. The puerile itch to tell the other man…

_...Just made love to her._

_While the sun came up, bees hummed and the ocean breeze played in the goddamn frangipani trees. Fucked her right here on the porch where you'll soon sit politely and wait to be offered coffee. _

Actually checks the daybed for stains before he gestures to Jack to take a pew. And there they are, faint telltale marks quickly drying in the warmth of the morning sun. The only proof that something actually happened here, other than him hallucinating. Because she sure as hell isn't showing anything except a cool, controlled disdain for him right now. And puzzlingly so, for both of them; him and Jack.

Sees how it all slips for a second as she spots his discarded boxers on the floor near Jack's sturdy brown brogues. Secretly ecstatic over the bright turquoise color, a horrible eyesore, almost impossible to miss. Watches somewhat annoyed as she kicks them under the daybed in a smooth seamless movement that seems to go unnoticed by Jack. _Damn her._ Will make her crawl under there for them later.

_Tonight._

He is astonished to discover a stitch of sympathy for Jack, in spite of everything. The poor _sonofabitch_ seated awkwardly on the exact spot where just a little while ago, she'd laid gasping, sleepy and warm under him with her fingers like fretful spiders in his hair. Can still taste her on his tongue, on his lips.

_And he doesn't get it._ Her sharpness with Jack, bordering on rudeness.

_His rival_. It ought to relax Sawyer, reassure him - but it does no such thing. It frazzles him how it puts everything on it's edge, makes everything seem unstable and unpredictable. Likes to think he understands her, but hell, he's knows fuck-all what's going on here.

She brusquely brushes by him, with a squalid excuse to put on the coffee for them. And he can't do anything but give Jack an apologetic shrug and high-tail it out into the kitchen after her. Finds her there banging the kettle against the counter, slamming the cupboards looking like a complete meltdown is underway. Swirling around, hair whipping across her face, as she hears his footsteps behind her. Instantly driving her index finger in his face with a completely unfathomable fury.

"_**You**_ did this! You! I should have known you would pull something like this!"

And this vocalized anger comes across as so atypical for her, it almost makes him laugh – such an unexpected turn of events. Usually it's a cold shoulder and sullen grumpiness, silent tears or fists. Rarely this - like a scolding wife or mother. Can't help staring at her chest and neck above the top. Red patches rising from her pale skin. Her soft childish chin rubbed red by his stubble. That unwelcome surge of love for her.

"I ain't done _nothing_ Kate. Didn't exactly _invite_ him…" Doesn't really bother trying to pacify her. Still too puzzled by her anger and the open animosity towards Jack.

"But you did _something_ you…asshole!" she sneers, nostrils flaring. Glaring at him while biting the inside of her cheek, kettle clasped in her hand as if she's just deciding whether to kill him with it or not. And right now, he wouldn't have minded much if she'd have bludgeoned him with it. If it had helped him understand the way her twisted mind works.

"Well _hell_ yeah… I called him. I told you as much…But as hard as it is to imagine, your name didn't come up!"

And he doesn't get it. What the hell she's so worked up about. Unless this is about that guilt, for sleeping with him, her shame of wanting this, wanting him. As if he's some sordid addiction, to be hidden, to be denied.

"Well anyway, _**you **_called him. And. _**Now.**_ He's. _**Here**_!"

How she shakes her tangled hair back so that it falls around her shoulders like debris. And those lips, ruby-red and full, this morning they'd whispered;_ 'James'. _ As if he were the _one_. Wondering now, if he might have heard wrong. Maybe he'd imagined it, imagined it all, the connection, the tenderness, her opening up. _To him._

"Listen up Sugarpop, I don't know what you're getting your panties in a wad for… So he's here, what's the big deal! We can all be civil for Christ sake!"

"Oh, I'll be civil alright!" she fumes as if she plans to be anything but. Turns her back on him, banging the kettle against the sink as she turns the faucet on fully making the water splash all over the front of her top. _What the hell is this?_

Wants to cuss and swear. _Damn it._ They ought to be curled up together enjoying a second or third round of mind-numbingly sweet sex by now. Not shouting in a freaking kitchen like a disgruntled middle-aged couple. _What the hell is wrong with them?_

"Hey, hey… simmer down Jitterbug…" tries to get closer, tries to grab her fidgety, flighty hands, coming up behind her. "Come here… baby. Come. It doesn't have to be like this..."

But she's rough, flings his hands away, shoving him out of her path as she moves over to turn the gas stove on. Flicking the spent match backwards so that it hits him by the side of his mouth. A whiff of her fragrance that has him swallowing hard. _Newly pleasured_. And pissed off about it for some fucked-up reason.

"No." Wheezed as she elbows her way past him again. As if his mere presence is unbearable now. Gives up his attempt to hold on to her. Impossible as it is what with her banging coffee cups on the countertop, slamming cupboards, yanking out drawers for spoons and sugar.

He just doesn't get it. He'd have thought she'd be happy to see the guy. Would have expected a gleeful cry and strong girl-arms thrown around the good Doctor's neck. And he would have hated that. _But this_. It just doesn't add up to anything he knows. The equation just doesn't jive.

"Hey, what the hell are you throwing a hissy fit for!"

No answer, just a deadly glare. Wonders how he can fall so hard for someone like this woman, fizzing and sizzling dangerously as if some idiot has just pulled the trigger-pin out of a grenade.

"So it ain't got nothing to do with feeling guilty, for doing the fast and loose behind Dr. Giggles back?... Us… what we did?"

"What do you mean '_us_'? And why would I feel guilty?"

He has no clue why she'd be this worked up if there wasn't some grain of truth in his accusation. He'd seen her face earlier. There is no getting around it. She'd looked as if she'd been caught with her pants down, _literally. _So they're back to that. Right back where they started.

"Yeah, just drop the dumb-act, it ain't working. _You. And. Me._ This morning… "

Predictably doesn't answer. Just glowers fiercely at the poor kettle as if she's trying to scare it into a boil.

_Damn woman. _And he might be a big old sissy for admitting to it - but it hurts like hell. Thinking that Jack would have known how to handle this. Him, he just dives right down there into the mud with her. Can't refrain from trying to hurt her back.

"Great Kate… just do that. Just shut it off."

She turns to vehemently squint her eyes at him.

" So, you _**giving**_ me away to him James?"

"What the hell are you on about…?"

"So you figure _'we can still __**make**__ it' - _me and _him_? That's it!_?_"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Wants to say_; no, no way. You're mine._

"Isn't that what you said up there… at the villa? All of this… I don't even know what it is but I thought…. And then you call _**him **_here to take me off your hands? "

Complete silence as they both realize that their voices have become loud and heated. Instantly trying to switch to a hoarse angry kind of whispering that feels far to intimate for comfort.

"Take you off my fucking hands?" Wants to tell her_; wants nothing but her in his hands. Nothing._ "Funny how nothing's changed huh Freckles? Still looking for an excuse to run."

Knows that nothing he says makes sense but there is no logic to her either, none of it matters. They are just running around in circles. He's not strong enough to say what has to be said. Can't bear it. Too scared she won't say it back, too chicken to have it spelled out. And her complete and utter denial. _It hurts like a bitch._

"I…no…" Watches as she stumbles on the words, giving up. Lips moving stupidly and she swings her face away, pretends to look for something in the cupboard.

Can't help it, the way she stretches up to reach for a biscuit box in the upper cupboard. Her top riding up high. Takes advantage of her arms raised high above her head and pulls his hands around her midriff, pulling her close, his lips right behind her ear because he can't reach any further.

"You and me. We're not done yet… not by far Freckles." Wants to whisper; _stay, stay, stay. Forget the man out there. Forget him. _Gets a biscuit box in his head in lieu of a reply for this. But he'll take it for now. Figures that if she'd really wanted to hurt him, she would have. Resolves to be civil to Jack, novel idea as it may be. ___Let bygone be bygones._

As she stumbles out through the door with a tray jam-packed with cups and biscuits and what nots', she switches it on as if nothing had happened. Maybe to hurt him. Plumping herself down there next to Jack, firing up that wide toothy smile, eyes glittering, faked for sure - but faked for _him_ all the same. _The other man._

That bitter taste of humiliation. A acrid aftertaste of those bizarre nightly visits to his tent, back on the island. Her strange vengeful passion, the suspicion that she was playing him for a sucker. The sense of being exploited, more than an inkling. And still, his complete surrender to it all. He'll take what he gets from her, debasing and degrading as it is. He'll tag along like a goddamn puppy-dog and catch the scarps she throws him.

_Can't do anything else._

….

They hardly even taste the coffee. He for one can't stomach it, the tart taste of her anger as if distilled and mixed in with the sugar. They set off to find breakfast instead, taking a walk down the beach path. Strolling along the three of them, like a perverted ménage a trois with her in the middle and Hurley a few paces ahead. A big cruel joke, that's what they are. Like something scripted by some demonic writer out to cause maximum pain. Almost four years have passed since they all first met and after all they've been through, it's pathetic how nothing has changed. He was with Juliet, Jack with _her_. Still the dynamics are essentially the same. The stakes still the same too.

_It was always about her. _

The eye of the hurricane. That strange innocence she's got, as if she isn't really aware of it. As if she doesn't have that social antenna. Not enough to pick up on this turmoil that she causes. _She isn't stupid, she isn't_. But she is strangely isolated from all of this. Detatched.

Jack and himself – like the fools they are, fighting for something that can't be had. And Hurley, like a large life buoy that they all cling onto for a little sense of sanity when the storms hit.

Sneaks a view of her sideways. Her arm swinging at her sides, an edgy, angry skittishness about her, eyes that flitter by. And god, he misses those arms. Wants them around his neck, wants to just snatch hold of her wrists and make her slide them over his shoulders.

"So when did you get here?" Kate, turning towards Jack, studiously avoiding looking at Sawyer.

"Well it was quite a trip, tight economy seats, turbulence all the way and lot of waiting around for interconnecting flights." As if he's been walking across burning coal to reach her. _The pompous ass. "_So yeah, I came this morning…"

It's cheap but he can't resist, swooping in close to her ear to whispers:

"Just like _you_ then Freckles…"

"Fuck you James…" she sneers under her breath, eyes stubbornly in the air ahead of her, and _that's_ it. Surprising him. At the minimum, he'd expected a proper elbowing between the ribs. Would have almost welcomed it. Anything better than being ignored like this.

"Oh, well… ain't you glad you did darling? By the way, your top is inside-out…"

Watches tongue in cheek as she frets, hastily looking down at herself. Trying hard to seem as if she doesn't care. Walks stiffly with her arm pressed to her left side to cover the white laundry-label sticking out of the seam.

…_._

They eat breakfast at a little café, right on the beach. Sitting in the shadow of a large banyan tree on mismatched chairs sinking into the sand. It's all very civilized, very polite. At least on the surface. Hurley talks and talks and talks. Fills Jack in on the whole distasteful ordeal with Danan and Widmore and the latest results of Henry's continuous snooping. Leaving out the little juicy tidbits. Such as Danan and Kate being buxom buddies and that _he himself had _tried working his way into Dewi's savings account.

But he's so distracted, he can hardly follow at all. The strange rush of longing as she kicks her shoes off and bores her feet down in the sand beneath the table. Can't take his eyes off them, small and pale, but a little stubby. Just like her hands. He sits with his head bent forward, like an idiot next to her. Jack on the other side, Hurley opposite of Kate.

And he feels like an ass because frankly, that part, the Aaron and Claire bit is so far off from his mind right now. _It's all about her._ About _her_ and _him_. Something getting away, gliding through his fingers, impossible to hold onto. A panic growing by the second.

They order food, _much too much food_. All restless, nervous and wanting something to occupy themselves with.

Hurley keeps up more than his share of the conversation with a grace that blows Sawyer away. Wishes he'd had half the man's dignity. Only - _he doesn't._ Impossible to act indifferent while sitting there, suddenly vigilant and hypersensitive to any minute interaction between the two of them. _Him and her_. Like trying to guard a little slippery pearl in cesspool of thieves.

_She's mine. _Only, he knows all too well; _she's not._

Jack and her, The history they share. It intimidates him more than he'd like to admit. _Hell,_ the asshole had even managed to slip a fucking ring on her finger. More than he'd ever had the guts to do with Juliet. Had held onto that ring for a ridiculous number of months, with a hesitation that he still can't explain. It had felt so right, or so he'd thought. And still – it just wasn't. She wasn't for him.

"Where the hell is Enos keeping himself this fine morning?" he asks Hurley just to say something.

"Miles is with Henry. Gonna' take a trip to see some people… someone at the marina down south. Might know something." Hurley eats his triple egg omelette, but not with his usual appetite. There is a lot of shuffling food around on his plate with his fork. Sawyer doesn't like the look of it at all.

_Hurley not eating; it ain't right._

_She_ however seems to have worked up a _hell _of an appetite.

He smirks, can't help himself and the silly sense of pride, as he watches her wolfing down pancakes like there is no tomorrow. All those calories, the shredded coconut and sliced bananas, everything completely drenched in palm sugar syrup. And the way she eats, the barbarism of her, inelegantly, primitively shoving the food in as if no one's ever taught her any manners. Licking her fingers and wiping her chin with the backside of her hand.

And he might be an old pervert but there is something extremely stirring about it. Something about the voracity, the lust, about sex and her and him... and _shit._ _How could he fuck it up so badly?_ He swallows hard, throat aching. Rips his eyes away from her and grabs his coffee cup to dissolve the large lump lodged there, gulping it down. It's too hot and he burns his tongue on it.

_What the hell is wrong with her?_ Seemed to like him alright this morning, before he went and screwed it all up with the blanket crap. Speaking of which; what's wrong with _him? _Their civilized small-talk alone makes him want to swallow his own tongue. Bitter and rancorous, the caustic agony of having to sit here and witness it all, that way they have with each other. Can't help notice how she even pours the sugar into his damned coffee. Two spoons, exactly. _Warm, thoughtful and affectionate_.

The way she _isn't _with _him_ and he wishes he could be with her.

How gently she touches _him_, the sight of her fingers skimming Jack's white shirtsleeve, stinging his eyes.

_Those fingers_. The very same sweeping hisneck this very morning as he thrust slowly into her. How she rippled and tightened under him, and how his heart almost exploded as she whispered his name. The alarming urge to sneer at her now: _he won't love you. Not like I do. _Preposterous thoughts. As if he knows fuck-all how to make her happy. He lowers his head. Can't do this. Pretends to be very occupied with his food, loading spoonful after spoonful of rice in his mouth. Rice and coffee. _Goddamn Asian breakfast habits._

_Get a grip. Goddamn it. _Tries to straighten himself out. Take back some goddamn dignity.

"Yeah…so what have you been up to buddy?" He says, balancing his own chair on two legs, rocking it back and forward, puts on that overconfident mask. Needs to hide behind something. Too raw, too disadvantaged.

"Not much," Jack says dryly and gets back to stirring his coffee and ogling _his girl_.

_Obviously doesn't want to chat about it huh? _Not so hunky-dory then.

And just because of the way the morning light hits him, sort of sideways, he suddenly sees that Jack has plenty of nicks and cuts on his throat and under his chin. As if he's shaved in a great hurry. The skin slightly lighter around the mouth than the rest of the face_. So, he's been growing a great shaggy beard, letting himself go._ Imagines him frantically scrambling to spruce up in a dirty airport bathroom before coming here. And there is a certain smugness about that. Can't help it.

"Still, I don't understand… what are you doing here Jack?" Kate leaning forward as if he's the most exhilarating creature on earth.

"I…well, when James called. I just … I thought." Both of Jack's hands, resting against the table in an oddly stiff position.

Kate's eyes oscillating between him and Jack, confirming this abstraction, this absurd notion. _Yep_. She's just like a spectator at a damn tennis match.

"So Sawyer called you _huh?_ I assume not just to catch up and talk old times…" she says sharply. And he's delighted that she calls him that. Somehow _Sawyer_ is a more worthy adversary than _James_.

"Well, that's between me and James…" Jack says and though he ought to be grateful. He's not. Everything about Jack wounds his nerves the wrong way. "Didn't know you'd be here though… Well, let's say I wasn't sure."

_But bet you were hoping though. You __sonofabitch._

And no, he's got to be better than this. _Rise above,_ he thinks.

"But what are you doing here?" Kate's confused, fleeting glance at him and he tries to look cool, smirks at her.

"Came to… Sort things out. James told me Hurley had put Claire up here and I just… wanted to make it right. She's my sister after all…"

_Yeah, __**now**__ she's your sister. Dumbass. _Didn't care a fig before. He's here for _her_. No other explanation. _So what, figured that old sucker Sawyer is here so she can't be far away?_

"But why now! Why didn't you look her up in LA? You knew she'd be there right? For the adoption… right?" Her voice climbs.

Jack is literally squirming and though Sawyer ought to feel satisfied about how uncomfortable he looks, there's an irritating twinge of compassion for the guy.

"Why now?" she repeats impatiently when Jack doesn't answer fast enough for her liking. Her hair falling in her face and that slightly wild, uncontrolled look she's got.

"Yeah, lets say, I wasn't in a… good place back then…" Jack mumbles and _damn it,_ he has to fight the urge to reach across and pat him on the shoulder. He looks so fucking miserable. Easier to like the guy when he's down and out. "As you might have noticed when I visited you… at the… Well, it's better now…"

"Yeah, I know. I _know_," She say's tartly, bear-trap jaws snapping shut, she does it so well. Obviously not fond memories of the encounter, but still…

"Well…when James called… well yes I thought you might be here with the others but... I'm so sorry about Claire and… I wish there was something I could do…"

Jack looks at her, all earnest and, _fuck_. He looks like a man _in love_ ought to look. Deep lines across the forehead and dark circles under his eyes, all sincere and solemn. He half expects Kate to reach for him, hug him hard and…

"Anyhow, you're too damn late Doc. " Wants to say; _both for the belated fraternal concern and for the girl. _Though truthfully, the way it looks, he isn't too sure about the latter.

"But, well… have you reported them missing? We have to do something, right?

Have you been to the police?"

_It can't be helped._ He rolls his eyes at the stupidity of the man. Kate just staring doggedly at her hands in her lap now.

"Great idea Doc. Why don't we call FBI and Interpol when we're at it. Hell, better yet, call America's Most Wanted tell them we've got a live one in Bali... maybe you can do us the honors?"

Jack's uneasy, apologetic eyes staring down into his coffee cup. Is about to gloat some more but one fleeting glance at Kate, how her face almost crumples up and he is effectively silenced. She doesn't need to hear all that crap again. And maybe because he misses her skin, maybe to show off, prove that there is something there, he drapes his arm behind the back of her chair and draws his fingers between her shoulder-blade, touching the warm smoothness of her there.

She elbows him. Not very hard, has to pretend in front of Jack that it's meant as a friendly poke. And the look she shoots him would have incinerated a weaker man. But he's not weak. He'll fight for this.

_Fuck it,_ he will, tooth and nail if he's got to.

* * *

She can't help it, nearly jumps a mile when she feels his fingertips on her back. Cheeky, uninvited, unwanted.

_Almost._

Wants them there. Doesn't. Unbearable this, how she feels naked and stripped with him. The way they were this morning. Before the arrival of Jack, it had her completely thrown. His words from when they were up at the villa ringing in her ears. "I figure you two can still make it…" As if he'd wanted to pass her off, give her away.

She bluntly shrugs it off, _his arm_. Jack's raised eyebrows as he watches them warily, not missing a thing. Sawyer's unpolished smile at her skittishness. Shaking his hair from his face and blowing out air through his nostrils, like a horse.

_This morning. It had started out as no other._

The juxtapose of shame and thrill at the thought of him between her thighs. Still warm and moist where he was. Deliciously tender. Hardly dares to think of what it was that happened back there, doesn't know what to call it. Certainly not something ordinary. Definitely not just sex, though she doesn't have the courage to try on another name for it.

_Something beautiful._

But Jack, arriving through the garden as if nothing has happened, as if no time has passed. She was his for a while after all. And she is completely thrown by it, by Claire and Aaron, Danan, Jack. And _him_, this man who slips off his own shoes and slides his foot over her ankle. His large feet with the high arches, strangely beautiful in that odd, groomed way his hands are too. A little bit of sand sticking to his soles, abrasive between them. Too frail, too open to deal with it now. She goes with her gut instinct and kicks him ruthlessly on the shin. Satisfied when he almost drops his coffee cup, grinding his teeth together not to scream out loud. The '_sonofabitch_' as obvious as if it had actually been spoken.

_Those lips. _On her this morning. All over her.

_Focus. She has to focus._

Tries to listen to Hurley's endless chatter, conversation flowing, heavily lopsided. Jack answers, singular syllable words. Sawyer eating as if he's famished, forking in his fried rice and gulping down his steaming hot coffee. And she, sensitive and high-strung and too acutely aware of him. _That hunger._ Lips drawn into that little pointed smile he's got that isn't really a smile, more a grimace. Intrusive eyes burrowing into her. Seeing right through her and her feigned calm. It doesn't take much to feel the heat on her own face rising.

Can't look at him. Can't help it, conscious of how she still feels him on her skin, somehow, the fragrance of him still clinging to her. And she can't think of it without remembering the swell of him inside of her, anchoring her, filling her up. It makes her clench her legs together under the table. _It's too much._ Him and her this morning.

How they were, for a short sweet moment before it all quickly went to hell - as is bound to happen with the two of them. The automatic rage flaring up, instantly with him. Steaming at the struggle with the blanket and crazed by his way of ordering her around. _You're not going back!_ As if he has the right to tell her what to do. But perhaps he does? Maybe now he does.

Wants to ask him; _come with me._ _Come with me. _ But knows that she won't ask. She has nothing to offer him. _Nothing_.

"I don't understand, so how could you convince Claire to come out here with you in the first place?" Jack seems to speak only to her. She wonders briefly if it's true_. If he really came for Claire._ She can't look him in the eyes. Ends up staring stupidly on her plate. The lie sounds outrageous now, rings of absurdity in her ears.

"I told her I was her sister…"

And to her surprise, Jack actually chortles into his coffee cup, an unexpected impulsive laughter growing within. It takes her aback. Him obviously finding this humorous. Sawyer raising his eyebrows and nodding as if in agreement.

"That's our girl…"

The laughter, the temporary respite from the vibrating tension, dies out. Something true about the 'our' in his statement that has them all staring down their coffee cups. _Not 'ours' - not anyone's._ Sawyer is the first one to move. She sees him reach down to put on his shoes again. Rises leisurely, hitching up his jeans and turning to Jack of all people.

"Need to get some smokes - you joining me doc?"

Something dark underneath, an undercurrent of something that she doesn't understand. And the way Jack jumps up, laying his napkin on the table.

"Sure, let's go."

Something fishy about that. The two of them, like long lost buddies. She watches as they grow smaller, walking south on the beach strip. Jack's reserved way of moving and Sawyer's swagger, recognizable from a mile away, shirt loose across his broad back and flapping like a sail in the wind.

* * *

He puts a hand on Jacks shoulder as they walk. Squeezes it a little, sensing the rigid tension of the other man giving way a little. As if they are long lost friends, brothers. And he guesses, in a sense they are. Or could have been, had it not been for _her_.

"So did you get around to do it?"

"Yes. Of course I did. I said I would." Short clipped sentences, as if every word costs him fifty bucks.

"Yeah, yeah, well you seemed a bit out of it when I called, is all. Any problem finding them?" He snatches his hand back, drives it down into his jeans pockets, shuffling along next to him. Marveling at the two of them here. _Another beach, another world. _Same girl. _Same fucking girl._

"No, not really. I found them and I did what you asked. Cassidy wasn't too pleased about it at first, didn't want any of it but then again… She seems to be a practical woman."

"Practical, ha! Yeah that's my Cass… So how much do I owe you Doc?"

It's painful to talk like this. Painful to have to be grateful to _him_. Still, it isn't as if he has an abundance of friends. Not for that kind of favor.

"Forget it, it doesn't matter." Jack walks beside him, looks everywhere except at him. They reach the little open beach shop where they sell cold drinks, ciggies and other necessities. Stomping the sand off their shoes as they take the two rough cement steps up. The young girl working there, giggling in lieu of a 'hallo'. Her black hair straight and shiny, cut in line with her jaw.

"Well it _**damn well**_ matters to me. My own goddamn problem… only needed you as a middle-man. So, how much?"

Picks out a few packs of the local clove cigarettes that he's grown so addicted to. Red and gold packages with a graphic drawing of a building on. The smell, sweet and spicy. Decides on a whim to get some condoms too, mostly just to rile the Doc, not because he thinks there is a chance in hell of a repeat performance with her. That door seems to have been slammed shut in his face.

Stands there in front of the shelf, leisurely picking them up, studying the absurdity of local branding. Finally chooses two packs of 'Virgin' just for the pure genius of it, and throws them on the counter with the cigarettes. Just _because_. Notices with satisfaction how Jack does a double-take when he spots the unmistakable square little packs.

_Juvenile perhaps._ Wants him to think that he has nothing to gather here. Nothing is up for takes. _Go home, Jack._

"I… it wouldn't feel right to take your money… not now. After Juliet and the… I'm sorry, but that's the least I could do… after…"

Pisses him off. Sends a shooting wave of anger, straight in the Jack's direction. _What a load of crap._

"Ain't got _nothing_to do with Juliet goddammit… and no money could ever make up for what you did…" he growls as he slams his hand down with a 50.000,- Rupiah note on the rickety wooden counter, making the poor shop attendant jump. Forces himself to flash her an apologetic smile.

"I wasn't suggesting that but…" Jack's turn to shove his hands in his trouser pockets.

"Just shut up Doc. I'll write you a goddamn blank check and you can fill in the fucking number yourself. I don't wanna' know. Sure hope you were generous."

"Wouldn't it be better if you just looked them up yourself? She's your…"

Swivels around to bare his teeth at the man. _He knows nothing. Nothing_.

"Better for who! For my goddamn conscience or for that poor little sod?"

* * *

Hurley pays the bill, and they sit in silence for a while watching the small peaks of the morning waves roll in and slide up the beach. The soft wind, causing little curls to liberate themselves from his tidy ponytail.

"Hurley, we have to get them back. We have to go there…" she says, pushing her plate away.

"Yeah, I know. I figured as much too… So have you talked it over with him?"

"Who?"

"Come on Kate… I'm not dumb. Sawyer of course. Have you talked to him about it?"

He stands up and pushes the chair back in its place and she follows him. Sawyer and Jack are approaching them in the distance and they start off in their direction. Sees how Sawyer's wheat colored hair lifts in the wind, like a fan on the side of his head. Jack's dark head, hair cropped close against the skull.

"Yeah. He's not coming."

"Ah… Well, you can count me in dude," he says as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She can't do anything but reach out and hug him. Hard. This man. The only one of them who has no reason to be ashamed of himself. Wondering where she'd be without him. Certainly not here, walking free, the smell of ocean in her hair and sand crunching under her shoes.

"Thank you, I don't know why you do this but…," she whispers into his shirt, breathing in his cologne, something light and airy." Thank you Hugo."

"Yeah, well that's how it is… You're stuck with me."

He pats her awkwardly on the back before he releases her. The two of them, the two men, coming closer. Her heart constricting, tightening dangerously at the sight of his smile, faked for sure, dimples digging in. Eyes battleship-gray and vigilant as they meet hers.

…

Hurley and Kate getting up from their seats at the beach café. Notices a quick little hug between the. _Shit_. Hurley does that so much better than him. Can deal with her.

"She's a looker." Jack's voice startles him from his thoughts. But he can't pull away his gaze from her. The way she walks towards them. That light bounce in her gait. The girlishness of her.

"Ya' think?" Wondering why the heck Jack feels the need to point out the obvious.

"Yeah. Ah… " Jack's uneasy laughter. "No… sorry, I meant Cassidy's daughter, your…"

"Yeah, yeah, I knew what you meant." He says pissily. Tearing his eyes off her with difficulty. _Damn, like fly-paper, that girl._

Jack's little chuckle that makes him want to punch his lights out. Turns around and attacks him instead, to wipe away the humiliation. The fact that Jack sees through him with such ease.

"So you're back on the damn water-cart Doc?"

"What?"

_Ha. Not laughing now are you?_

"Back on the wagon? No boozing, no little funny pills?"

"Yeah I'm back on. For now. It's a daily struggle but…"

"Yeah, yeah… I don't care on bit either way... It's just that I ain't planning on bribing your skinny behind out of Bali Hilton is all, so you better stick to the damn program, alright... "

"Oh, well, I am sober. For now."

"Not an extremely awe-inspiring attitude Doc," he grouses, secretly enjoying setting the ground rules for a change. _The switch of their roles. _"You so much as take a pinky off that fucking wagon I'll throw your sorry ass onto the next freighter to Shanghai. She ain't gonna' have to deal with that bullshit now, alright?... She's got enough as it is."

Her and Hurley, standing up there on the beach walk, waiting for them. Her dark hair twirling in the wind. The impulse to run to her. A 'sorry' weighing on his tongue. Whatever, doesn't care that she's completely insane and that she'll probably end up breaking him. That girl, this morning. _She's worth all of that._

"So you and her, you look like… Well, what I saw, are you..?"

"You ain't seen nothing Doc. Nothing to see." And he doesn't know why he snaps like that. Had wanted the Doc to back off. Had wanted to put his claim on her. Now he feels a bit of an ass. Jack came here, same as him, and whatever he's telling himself. He came here looking for the impossible. _For her._

"So you're not together?"

"Why?...You looking to patch thing up Doc?""

_Will maim him if he catches him with anything looking like a fucking Tiffany bow. That's for sure._ But he doesn't say that. Can't.

"No. No I don't know…. Looks like I've already messed up enough… I just, I don't know how to just put it behind me."

"Join the fucking club…" he mutters, aware of how his own accent goes truly country bumpkin next to Jack's.

"One last thing Doc, " he grumbles as he walks ahead of him. "You convince her to turn herself in, I'll plant some goodies on you and call the fucking _Narcs_ on you. _You hear me_?"

Catches up with them, her and Hurley. Can't help smiling at her, standing there looking cute as a button. Full stomach and in desperate need of a shower by the looks of it, not caring anymore that her top is inside out and her trousers more wrinkled than an accordion.

"Missed us Freckles?"

A hint of something there, even though she turns her nose up at him. A shadow of a smile at the corner of her mouth

…

They walk back, taking a detour past Hurley's resort. Sawyer is trailing far behind them with Hurley, but she can feel his eyes on her neck. _Always_. And though she ought to be annoyed by how he watches her like a hawk, she isn't. There is a strange comfort in having him keep an eye on her.

Jack is pale now and sweats profusely, and it surprises her because she can't remember it from the island. His white shirt sticks to his back and his brow is glossy from perspiration. It strikes her that he might be going through some kind of withdrawal and everything about that, just makes her want to cry.

"Kate, I've thought a lot about when… when I came to visit you at the…"

"'_Jail'_ Jack, you can say it…" she mumbles, having an inkling where this is going. The affection for him a completely different breed than the convoluted, intense hold Sawyer has on her. Something sad and pathetic about it. How she isn't good enough for him and how he simply isn't enough for her. How he'd wanted to make her into something entirely different and how she had always wished he was someone else.

"I wish I hadn't left it like that. I'm, well, you know I was in quite a state…"

"Why do you do it Jack?" And she isn't angry with him. She can't be. She just feels exhausted walking here next to him. Somehow it sucks all the energy right out of her. Like putting a wet blanket over everything, suffocating.

"What…?" He doesn't look at her. Looks at his shoes, at the little market stall they pass, at the tourists, the vendors lining the beach path. But not at her.

"The drugs, the drinking… I don't get it, why do you have to do it?... You have everything, your mother, you life, you job… I don't understand what's missing. "

"I don't know either. Something just is."

"I hope, you find it Jack. I really do."

"And you… Kate. Is this really what you want? A fugitive, always running, hiding?" She hears a silent 'with him?' there at the end but is grateful that he doesn't say it.

"No Jack. I don't want this. But this is how it is." To think that she, empty and broken as she is, should turn out to be the stronger one of the two. And really she doesn't get his addiction. Doesn't understand what kind of pain he's trying to numb. And maybe she compares him to herself, to Sawyer, trivializes his pain compared to theirs. The ugly urge to shout: '_You think this is hard? I'll give you something to cry about.'_

Torn between wanting to comfort him and wanting to slap him.

"So you and Sawyer…?"

He throws it out there like bait, hoping she'll take it. But she just shrugs. She isn't going to talk about it with him. _Something she can't even define to herself_. But she feels it, in his wary eyes are stroking her back, caressing her neck as she walks there. Knows he's watching her every step. Wonders why she's been so afraid of him, so apprehensive of giving into him.

_He'd never hurt her, and at the same time, he's the only one who really can._

"Kate, you… this won't last, you know that. And you can still make things right… You can come back, face it. You can still do the right thing. Maybe you can find peace... " It irks her, how he preaches, his forehead crinkled in concerned folds. Still. As if he has some kind of credibility left.

"I'm not like you Jack."

"What does that mean?" he mumbles, wiping away the sweat from his upper lip. And it's strange how all of a sudden, she can't see it anymore. Can't imagine what ever drew her to him. He's a different species. Not like her.

"I loose no sleep over it. None." And that's the truth. "As far as I'm concerned, I did the world a favor."

"But… You can't pretend you wish you hadn't. Maybe if you came back, did your time… well maybe you could..."

"What? Find redemption Jack? Is that what _you're _after? That's why you decided to blow us all up? Well, it didn't work did it? We're still here, _you _are still miserable, and what's more, I'm _still_ convinced that flicking that lighter was the best thing I've ever done."

"I'm sorry Kate." His quiet voice grating. "I'm sorry I couldn't be what you wanted."

"It's not that. It's that you didn't care what happened to any of us." Civil, she reminds herself. Doesn't want to raise her voice. Come to think of it, she doesn't want to have this conversation at all.

"I **_did _**care. I was trying save us all…" The worst thing being that he probably believes it too.

"No, that was for you… Not for us." hushed now. Doesn't want their voices to carry backwards to Hurley and Sawyer.

"I did it for _us_." He tries to catch her hand and she just pulls it away, hastily. Wants to hit him now, for even having the nerve to say the word 'us'.

"Sure. And now, are you going to do the right thing again? Are you gonna' turn me in Jack?" She doesn't know where it comes from, that old bitterness. It should have been long gone. But it isn't. She lets herself fall behind him, just puts on the break so that Sawyer and Hurley can catch up.

"Well ain't this the prefect day for a walk in the sun Freckles?" he says. The wicked brilliance of his smile and in a way it isn't all that bad. Sometime during this morning, this crystalizing realization breaking free like a block of ice.

Her there side-by-side with him. Her past walking a bit ahead and she finds that she doesn't mind letting it go. The way his hand sweeps by hers, her fingers itching to grab on to it. It's _him _and she would snatch his hand if she dared. Clasp it in hers and pull him with her in the opposite direction. Would ask him to run, tell him; _come, come with me. _

_Come._

* * *

_Hope you liked it.. (in spite of an oddly messed-up ooc Jack…) Thanks for reading :-)!_


	24. Take another turn

_Thanks so, so, so,so much for the reviews. I'm so amazed that any of you still have the energy to follow this story, it's dragging on for ever. Your notes and comments, I swear, I read and re-read them. They mean the world to me._

_Rating: M for language and sexual content _

Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it is.

* * *

**Take another turn**

* * *

_When had this happened?_

So slowly, so surreptitiously crawling up on her, she hadn't even noticed. Or maybe it's because it was so fast, so rushed there had been no way to beat it off. She doesn't know. Perhaps it was always there, right from the start.

They're all there on the porch. Jack, Hurley, Miles and even Henry who's brought with him two thick brown paper folders and some new information he's managed to couch out of a local police officer upon offering a considerable backhander.

Jack there in front of her and she's only vaguely aware of him looking at her. That hopeful glance shot across the table might have had her rattled before, might have made her second-guess herself. But not now.

_Not now._

She can't think of any of it. Not with Sawyer there sitting right next to Jack_, s_louching unattractively against the side of the sofa. An unlit cigarette at the corner of his mouth. Looking mostly uninterested and bored by the proceedings. Though every now and then, he meets her wandering eyes and lights up a little. Just a hint, and she can tell he's trying to hide it. Trying not to smile at her.

And though normally she'd just have looked down, pretended it was a mistake, she can't do that now. Instead she fixes him so intently, he is the one to break it off. But not for long, right back again, pursing his lips into a little grimace. Back to staring at her while wiggling that cigarette with his tongue, flexing his fingers in front of him, as if he'd rather do something else with them right now. An almost unnoticeable hitch with the head, a minute little nod at the daybed he's sitting on. _'Remember?'_

She does -_ god _she does.

The two of them like misbehaving children in detention, none of them paying attention to the grown-ups.

...

Seeing him after those three long years, arriving at Dharma. Being thrown 30 years back in time had been _nothing_ compared to swallowing that hard truth. The fact that he was with_ her_. Juliet. She hadn't wanted to believe it, still couldn't for the life of her deny the painful logic of it. Him, looking unbearably serene with her and his new role. A palpable, easy camaraderie between the two of them. This woman, the sense of true substance under the layer of blonde hair and blue-eyed beauty. Sharp and harrowingly intelligent, an ease about her. A way of fitting in, of being at peace with herself. Something she herself has never had.

Never quite belonging. Always separate, alone. That's just how she is, how she's always been, for as long as she can remember. Carrying a shame so great. A stain transcending everything, enveloping an entire childhood. Something so tawdry her own mother could never bring herself to look her in the eyes. It had isolated her from everyone. Everyone.

Except from Tom.

A stupid childhood memory of him and her. The two of them against the world and the only one. _The only one who knew._ That silly idea with the time capsule and that recorded tape, the one they'd dug up together, before._ Before the end. _

"_We'll be married and you'll be a mom and we'll have 9 kids," _he'd said it as if he really, truly believed it.

He'd been beautifully innocent, undamaged. His smooth boy-face, with nothing to hide. No vile secrets hidden so deeply you'd have to throw a Zippo lighter at them to make them go away.

"_I don't think so. As soon as I get my license we should just get in a car and drive. You know, run away."_

Because even back then she'd been jaded and scarred. But not stupid. She had never been stupid.

"_You always want to run away, Katie."_

What he had, something so beautifully unpolluted and pure you could warm yourself on it. Hope to catch a crumb of it. She had envied it, clung to him for it. Hoping it would rub off on her.

"_Yeah, and you know why."_

The only one she'd ever told, just simply because she had been too young to lie. Too young to understand the humiliation of telling him. And he, too young to understand the gravity of it, too naive to pity her, making their friendship possible in spite it all.

If she'd been older, more savvy, had had time to harden, she would never have told him. And perhaps it was as well, how he'd grown up with it. Like just another thing about her, like her scrawny knees and her freckled skin. Never changing how he'd looked at her.

_And she loved him for it._

Loved him the only way she'd been capable of. The way you love what's better than you, made from a finer cloth than you. More adoration and reverence than anything else.

…..

How she'd mistaken Jack for being that man, another Tom. The man that could build her up, could restore her. Back to what, she doesn't know. But the lure of that, the possibility of someone looking at her like that again, like Tom had, before it had all gone to pieces - it had been too great to resist.

Puzzling to find that all along, she'd been so wrong.

…..

They'd both been sixteen years old. _Barely. _Their birthdays one after another, two weeks apart. One celebrated with a home-baked cake and candles and the other with pilfered cigarettes and a stolen kiss behind her stepfather's work-shed.

They were still in high school, though for her it wasn't a time of proms and flirtations in the cafeteria. Her days had been filled with hiding, masking herself, pretending to be just another teenage girl. Knowing intuitively that she wasn't like others. That she wasn't right. Those days of balancing on top of buildings, rooftops and balconies. _Wondering if it was high enough. _But he had been hers then. Enough to keep her off that ledge.

It was just before she'd finally dropped out, maybe only a few weeks before she'd left that world behind, never to look back. At least not with any kind of regret. She'd been loitering around outside the large brick building. Her butt braced against the low railing below the steps to the school. Average. Nothing special. Her hair in a ponytail, flat-chested and boyish, her slim jeans low on her narrow hips. Undeveloped, unfinished, not a girl you'd look twice at. Sitting there drumming her fingers against her school bag, drawing in the chilly autumn air, the smell of decaying maple leaves all around her. Waiting for Tom to come out of football practice. Always waiting for him nowadays, he'd suddenly become busy and popular in a way that she'd never be.

The shame, the absolute mortification, when she'd spotted him, walking with Rachel, arm thrown around her waist. The undiluted jealousy as she'd dropped down behind the wall, holding her breath. Watching the two disappearing down the street, shame burning in her throat. The way Rachel had thrown her hair back and laughed at something he'd said, a spontaneous, openmouthed laughter and he'd hugged her closer. Something unblemished about the two of them. _Normal. Whole._

_The way she could never be._

That weekend she'd gone to some party in a fancy neighborhood of their little pathetic town. A guy she knew casually from school. That type, Tom's absolute opposite. Loud, confident, and cocky. Tight black jeans and a worn old leather jacket inherited from some deadbeat father. There was something about that type.

She hadn't planned to sleep with him_, she hadn't_. She wouldn't have, if only she hadn't been so drunk and if only Tom hadn't shown up ten minutes past twelve with his arm slung around Rachel. No, she wouldn't have followed the guy up to some stranger's bedroom, locked the door and let him bundle her onto the bed. Wouldn't have let him kiss her or grapple with her jeans, wouldn't have given in so easily when he'd pushed himself inside of her, boorish and inexperienced. She wouldn't have.

If only it hadn't hurt so much. The two of them together.

_The betrayal too large, too acute. _

A way to punish herself, to bury the humiliation. Accomplishing nothing but digging herself even deeper down. He found out about it of course. Guys' locker room talk, things get around. She should have known. And although he had no such claims on her. The way he'd looked at her, a mixture of disgust and pity. A chapter closed by her own inadequacy and his longing for something more.

There was no going back after that, no refunds to be had. Tom and her, it had always been them. _Until then._ What she did, what had happened, had served only one purpose. Confirmed what she had suspected all along.

Her own worth, of no value at all.

…..

An ignominious mistake, and there would be many more to come, as if almost on a loop. Doomed to repeat it throughout her life, even with him. Only that time, they'd been on an island instead of in a small Iowa town, Jack and Juliet instead of Tom and Rachel. But the essence the same. Exactly the same. Except that he, the substitute for the cocky boy in the black jeans, had turned out to be someone else altogether.

Someone who didn't think she was nothing.

Sawyer with all his flaws, his flare for lying, his undeniable knack for talking out of his ass and his unattractive insecurities. This pull towards him. Him and her. As if that's the way it has be.

She knows he's no hero, no self-sacrificing soul mate. He's definitely not the steady nave needed to hold her brittle axis together, and she doesn't expect that either. He's the man who kicks up a cloud of dust, wherever he goes, makes a racket to show he's there. He grabs, demands, takes, but he'll never mask his greed as anything else. And though he might be better than her in many ways and certainly more worthy, he'd never make her feel like that.

_Never make her feel less than him._

…_.._

They're all still sitting there on the porch and though they should go inside, none of them reflects over the stifling midday heat. Too caught up in their discussions, twisting and turning all the evidence, debating them, back and forward and then back again.

She can hear them talking, but she can't see them, not really. They are there but they remain in her peripheral vision. _Sawyer,_ stealing away her every thought. She can't unglue her eyes from him, follows every minute little movement of his as if entranced. The way his fingernails scratch against the stubble, the sound magnified in her ears. How he tilts his head about 25 degrees to the left when he's reading, shooting his jaw out while flicking through one of the files. The way he makes a wry mouth every time Jack speaks up. Quite a few eye-rolls too.

Startled out of her day dreaming as he gets up from his seat on the daybed, perhaps tired of sitting down for so long. Denims a bit baggy around his ass, shirt crumpled and wrinkled and hair messy at the back of his head. Not so nerve-rackingly beautiful like this.

_She can almost take it._

Stretches his arms above his head, so that his shirt is hitched up over his waistband. Takes a few steps back and forward on the porch behind her where she's sitting in one of the armchairs. Forcing her to rotate her head in order not to loose him from her sight. He struts a little, flicking his hair back, aware that she's watching but not wanting to give it away.

Out of nowhere he takes one of the bottles of ice tea from the table and refills her glass for her. Just like that. Bending forward like a sloppy waiter over her shoulder, twisting his head and catching her eyes as he does. Wicked grin glimmering behind that hair, looking straight at her, as if he could eat her up, and spit her out in a pile of bones. Her blood roaring in her ears.

He stands up again, continues his sauntering behind the back of her chair, sticking both of his thumbs in his back pockets. And god, she can't keep staring at him like that. Certain, they all can see. Hurley, Miles and Jack.

_When had this happened? _

When exactly had it sneaked up on her? The words forming at the back of her mind, taking shape, one letter at the time. And much as she tries to erase them, blot them out, they refuse to be denied. Clambering out, brazenly, unwanted.

The glass sliding between her fingers and she knows she'll drop it even before she does._ Crashes. _Smashing against the hard stone floor of the porch, little glass splinters flying everywhere. Him, a little startled, quickly finding himself. Can hear the smile in his voice.

"My... we _are_ jumpy!"

The way he does it. That unquestionable acceptance of the heap of crap that she is, as if it were nothing special. Nothing weird about her. The way he doesn't judge, though he's got all the reasons in the world to do so.

"Don't worry, I got it."

Remains sitting there frozen. Watching as he bends down with a piece of tissue, shuffling the chards together in a little pile. But she can't move.

_She knew. She always knew._

Him, looking up at her, eyes teasing, almost happy. As if their earlier storm has blown over, turned in to something else. And the discovery of it, the truth sinking in. Words taking on a razor sharp clarity. _After so long time._

_Loves. Him._

Everything goes dark, as if she's about to faint. A wave of nausea hitting her. She hurls herself up from her seat. Sprinting across the living room, just about makes it to the kitchen sink.

* * *

" Hey what's up with her?" Miles mutters staring at the door still swaying after her hasty flight through it.

"How the hell would I know?" He stands up places the chards in the tissue on the table. His left leg, the one closest to the door twitches to follow her, to rush after her.

"She looks pale... maybe she's coming down with something?" Jack says as if he's the goddamn expert on how she ought to look.

"Maybe she's just tired," Hurley sighs and truth is, none of them have gotten much sleep lately.

"Or maybe you've managed to knock her up already Jimbo...?" Miles says and he wants to pulverize that smug asshole. Hates this animosity between them now, the way it's been since Claire's abduction. Their friendship as if it had never existed in the first place

"Hardly any of your business Enos. Ain't possible anyhows…"

He can't help it any longer, turns to enter the house. Feigning calm. As if he doesn't just want to run. Annoyed to find Jack following in his footsteps.

"I'll handle it Jack!" he ejects. Thumb towards the door. "Get lost!"

"Right. Like you handled it last time…" Something, a trace of something else in Jack's quiet voice behind him freezes him in his tracks.

"What the fuck is that supposed top mean? What last time!"

"Ask her…" he says simply and just turns back around.

"I'm asking you Jackass! What last time?" Tries to clasp onto Jack's shirtsleeve but he's too slow. The sound of her hurling in the kitchen makes his feet move in the opposite direction. Jack disappearing through the door towards the porch.

"Our little chat ain't over Doc!" he shouts after him.

* * *

Bracing herself with one hand on each side of the kitchen sink while her stomach turns inside-out.

_You. You._

And he's there, she hears or rather feels the bounce of his feet as comes closer. A warm wide hand on her forehead as she pukes like a sick kitten. A strangely caring gesture that makes her stomach swivel again.

"Christ… That's nasty. You ain't sick are you? Maybe some crap you ate?"

Everything comes out, and if she wasn't so busy throwing up, she'd have been mortified by it. Him here at this moment. He turns the faucet on, lets the water flow hard, immediately washing it away. Washing away the sour unpleasant smell too.

"Yeah," she presses out. " Must have been… something I ate…"

_It's you. You asshole. You._

"Shit… that's pretty awful Freckles. Maybe that wild stack of pancakes? Nobody should eat that much, that early in the morning…"

_No. It's you. You idiot._

He releases her and she thanks god, thank god. She can breathe again. Almost.

_You._

Can't have him that close. Scares the living daylight out of her.

_Loves him._

He gets the cold water bottle out of the fridge, pours her a glass from it and stretches it towards her.

"Drink up girl!"

She takes it, fingers shaking slightly, lightheaded and nauseous. Something heartbreakingly domestic about it, him here. Looking out for her.

_Run. Kate. Run. _Says the voice in her head.

He won't like what he finds. _He won't be able to love you, once he knows._ Shameful, dirty and convoluted inside. Everything soiled and marred. _He won't look at you the same again. Will stay with you out of pity._

_Run. Hide._

_You don't deserve him._

"Come on girl, I'll help you lie down... You're white as a ghost…" Reaches across to take her arm and she pulls back. Can't. Won't. Needs time to digest this. What she should have known all along. Needs to find her footing, to decide what to do. In the meantime, she can't have him in her face like this.

_Don't._ _Don't be so damn nice_.

How he tries to bend her open, doggedly keeps coming back over and over again. Tirelessly stubborn, like trying to force a calcified oyster to give way. She knows he's hoping, no banking on finding something of beauty there inside. Only she knows there is no shiny pearl to be had.

_Nothing of worth within._

Can't handle the way she feels too raw, too exposed with him, everything peeled back. He, who can see right through her. How can he be so blind to this? _Who she is. _ She's not for him. He doesn't need the muddled chaos that she is, nerves twining, twisting under the surface. A mind that is never at peace. _Never okay._

"No. I can manage on my own," she spits like a cat, slinking by him and his concern, evading what he offers.

…..

But she is a mess. Wants him to come after her. Wants him to stay the hell away. She flings herself on to her bed. The cotton linen cool and soothing against her cheek. _And she isn't ready, isn't sure she'll ever be. _But she misses him. Even though he's right here. In this house.

He stops by in the doorway, doesn't come in.

Come. Go away.

"You okay? Want me to get you anything Sweetcakes?"

_No. Want you to take this away. _Make it stop.

She can't feel like this. Not now. She other things to do, she has to go after Claire. And Aaron. It isn't a choice. Wishes he wasn't so damned nice to her. Likes him a lot better when he's being an asshole. Much better like that, so that she can keep thinking that she doesn't need him.

_Doesn't want him. _

Loves him.

* * *

He rejoins the others on the porch. Henry's served his purpose and been sent packing. Miles and Hurley are on the topic of boat versus plane. Desmond versus Linus. He knows who his preference for an ally would have been - but this has got nothing to do with him. _He ain't going back._ Simple as that. And almost on a whim he decides that _neither is she._

Not if he's got anything to say about it.

Jack is mostly quiet, looks sleepy and rather disinterested in the conversation in fact.

"Jack. You joining this harebrained expedition then?"

"I haven't… I haven't made up my mind yet," Jack says as he heaves a sigh. As if it's a heavy fucking burden to be a hero. To have to _save _people all of the time.

"How about you Sawyer, we could really need you too…" Hurley's puppy eyes make him sick.

"No. I ain't never going back. Hell no," he says. Nonnegotiable.

"I'm sorry. I wish there was a way to… I'm sorry James."

He realizes that he has some kind of leverage here. Juliet and the guilt. And he damn well is going to suck that chip dry, harvest as much as he can from it.

"So Jack… you wanna' make it right?" Peaking up at Jack's pathetic excuse for an apology. "You wanna' make it up to me?"

"Sure, yes… I would… " hesitant now. Wary, tolerant smile in sawyers direction. _Ha._ He's easy, he's almost got him.

"Well we've already agreed that money won't do it Jack… but here's a novel idea. How 'bout you do me a little _favor_ instead?"

"What do you have in mind James?" His stance stiffening visibly, he can sense the snare being brought around his neck.

"Well,… here's how I see it… How 'bout this…? You go! You go and get your goddamn sister yourself and we call it even."

And Jack's deadpan expression tells him that he's got him. As if in a little box. There is no way he can back out of going after his own sister without looking like a total ass.

"Of course I want to see Claire and Aaron back safely… but like I said. I haven't decided yet…"

"No, but well too bad… 'cause here's the thing. _I have_. You're going. And you know what else Jacko'… _She'_s not."

"That's your take buddy? Don't think she'll be too happy about it," Miles says looking down his nose at him.

"She can be very persuasive," Hurley says drumming his fingers against his Coke-bottle. Warm already by the look of it and probably chockfull of ants after having stood open for hours.

"Well, so can I. And you three are gonna' tell her she can't come. She ain't welcome to join you." At this he looks up to fix all three of them with a threatening glare, hoping to put the fear of god in them, probably failing miserable.

Something in the way Jack sits there looking superior and as if he knows so much more about her than _he_ does needles his temper in the most vexing manner. Wants to sucker-punch him across the jaw. Not that hard. _Just hard enough. _Doesn't know quite how he goes from there to where Jack's haughty underhanded insinuation before, jars in his ears.

'_Like you handled it last time?'_ Last time?

He stirs from his seat, calms himself enough to sound marginally polite:

"Hey Doc, come give me a hand would ya'...?"

Walks ahead of him. Yanks him inside as soon as he sees the white of Jack's shirt peeking through the crack of the door. _Fast. Fast. Fast._

"What..?"

Boots it shut behind them while swiveling his head around. Privacy. Fuck, they need privacy for what he wants to do to him. Tackles him inwards towards Miles' room. Goes after him like a heat-seeking missile. Niceties and conventions going up in smoke. He clams him against the door.

"What do you want!"

Underarm pressed against his neck, jaw forced upwards.

"Talk or I'll step it up a notch!" Pushes harder, his entire weight against Jack. "Like I handled _what _Doc?"

"Alright…alright!" Jack's eye's red, tears springing out from the pain.

"What the fuck was that about?" Wants to keep his voice down, but can't.

"What?" Jack's hands grappling, trying to remove him, create some space in between them.

"Talk or I'll do some proper damage."

"Alright I said!" Jack struggling to bend his arm away but Sawyer is the heftier one. Plus, he's got no scruples to hold him back from inflicting pain on this guy. Hardly any. "Let me get some air!"

"Yeah yeah smartass, just talk!" Lightens the pressure a little. Just enough so that he can speak without choking. Jack sweating like a pig and Sawyer hate's that he can smell him. Can almost smell his contempt.

"She was pregnant."

"What…?" _No. No she wasn't. _

"When we got back the first time…"

"What the hell have you been popping Doc?" _He's lying. Said she wasn't. Said she was sure. _But he knows. The instant he hears the words. He knows that's what she would do.

"Lost it while waiting for her first hearing." Feels Jack almost relaxing under his arm at this. Like he is pleased to share this information. Like something he's been sitting on for a hell of a long time, itching to let it out.

"That's _bullshit._ Why should I believe you?" he growls, though he knows. Doesn't want to know this. Wants to put the words right back. Make Jack eat them up again.

"Why shouldn't you?"

_Why not? _Wants to hold on to her lie.

_- I'm not worried. And I'm not pregnant.-_

"She said… said she can't have kids..." Not so certain anymore. About anything. Stumbles backwards and the Doc just hanging there against the door, rubbing his throat, it has him feeling like a big dickhead.

"Obviously she can, since she was pregnant. Though, I don't think it was her first loss…"

"Just shut the fuck up Jack."

He doesn't want to hear it.

_Too private_. Too intimate. And too fucking painful. _Fuck._ Like thinking you'd accidentally toppled her over causing a little harmless scratch at the most. Only to find out that you had taken out a goddamn steam-roller and flattened her under it repeatedly._ Feels sick. _Could do with some retching in the kitchen sink himself right now.

That time at the barrack. Starting off as an obscure feeling of having somehow handled the situation a little clumsily only to find out with increasing panic how absolutely unforgivably cruel he'd been.

_- You didn't want a baby anymore than I did. –_

It puts her obsessive attachment to Aaron in a new light. Can almost understand it now. Hates how Jack has been sitting on this information for years. How that somehow makes him know her better.

Drives his hand through his hair, one glance at Jack, and he knows that he's just given this man everything he needs. He's just turned the world right again. Right back to where Jack is a good man, a hero and Sawyer is Sawyer. _Just another scumbag._

…

Tells himself he just want to check on her, see if she's feeling better. Truth is, he wants to push her up against a wall too. Wants to ask her why the hell she'd lie. Why she'd put so little trust in him.

She's fast asleep on her bed. Curled up with her knees drawn up, snoring lightly. Face innocent and childish in sleep. Wants to slump down and lie there right next to her. Wants to wake her up with his fingers in the her hair just above her ear. Wants to say '_sorry, sorry_', sorry for being such a miserable sonofabitch. For always saying and doing the wrong things. Wants to shield her, look after, but then again, he's the heartless bastard who is always hurting her.

….

She sleeps too long. It's already afternoon when she wakes and Jack is with Hurley and Miles, doing god knows what. She hopes they're making plans, but can't help feeling a little miffed that she wasn't invited along. She isn't even feeling sick anymore. _Just like old times,_ as Sawyer would say. Jack doesn't want any womenfolk around meddling with his big important plans.

Sawyer and her, alone in that house. Like filling the entire space with a trembling electrical charge.

She tries to stay out of his way but its hopeless the way she is drawn to him. A large blotch on her radar, covering everything else up. He lies on the hardwood sofa with the fan on highest capacity. His shaggy hair blowing around his head as if set up for some corny fashion shoot. Reads a book with his beautiful long feet hanging over the armrest of the sofa.

She walks by, mouth dry like paper, pretending not to see him, course set on the kitchen. Oh well, she might have done that trip once too many times.

"You might wanna' stop that pacing!" Sounding like a hissy rattlesnake. Not even lifting his eyes from his book, _Jackie Collins' 'Dangerous kiss'_ she notices to her great amusement.

"I'm not pacing."

"It's called pacing if you've done it fifty times Darlin'! Floor is starting to wear thin, Hurley won't be too happy 'bout it."

"Didn't know you were such a '_romantic_' Sawyer." She grins and indicates his book.

"You wanna' come here an' find out Butterbean?" he says, crossing his feet at the ankles. Two rows of even teeth visible. Damn those the dimples. "Sides… I'm running out of reading material."

"Well, we're not stuck on a desert island… I'm sure you could find something else… If you really wanted to."

"Smarty-pants."

…

The afternoon runs on and on in the little house. Excruciating to just _be_, irritation growing by the minute at the fact that Jack and the rest elected not to include her on their outing. And why _he_'s still here, lazing around all day long, she can't for her life understand. She is restless and fidgety and the empty house screams of the void left behind Aaron and Claire. The door to their room remains closed, as if a silent agreement to leave it as it is has been taken. No one sets a foot there. It's just there, waiting for their return.

Can't think, can't sit still and the air is humid and pressing. Torturing how he is the only other living creature in this house. She knows she should just get the hell out of there. Go out. Except, she can't make herself. Wants to be near him.

Figures, _maybe he wants that too. _But there is no mention of this morning. Too large, too weighty and neither of them are brave enough, adult enough to face up to it. Like it had never happened. They don't talk about themselves, the island, or Jack or anything real. They just play, that tug and pull they always seem to end up doing. And they make a good show of it. Pretending indifferent, the kind of game they excel at.

They hide there, in what they know. The volatile mingling of their mutual desires, doing nothing to cool down the oppressive heat of the house. A lusty, intensive kind of flirting, the type that leads nowhere but makes the moldering hot air vibrate between them. Comforting in its familiarity.

…

He slides by her in the kitchen where she's preparing ice tea. _For herself._ Her face is flushed and her shirt sticking to her back, perspiration dripping down her cleavage. He scans her chest and gives her a little appreciative:

"Well-well-well…gotta' love global warming..."

Mouth as if he's sucking on a caramel as he takes her in, reaching into the fridge to grab a beer. His shoulders moving under the shirt. Broad and sturdy, always a little bit off. Bows his head forward as he twists the cap off, chucking it in the sink beside her. Brings the bottle to his lips, leaning casually against the counter, his head cocked sideways.

"So Doc is out."

"Meaning what exactly?" A jolt as she imagines his lips somewhere else entirely.

"Just saying…." he says sweeping right out of there again. Just like that. And so it continues, all afternoon long. Charged and good-humored at the same time. Annoying beyond all reason, unhinging her completely. But then again. She searches him out. Impossible to stay out of his way.

…

It's seriously grating, the way he glides by. Minimum physical contact but always his breath stroking by, her neck, her cheek or her face. And she can't help how it makes her think of him and her all tangled up in arms and legs on her bed. Frustrating. _And the hands, always the hands._

"_Beanstalk _ain't back yet…" he whispers as he passes by her back where she stands in the doorway trying to call Hurley. The air cooling down now, the late afternoon wind blowing in through the little courtyard intermingled with the smell of barbeque somewhere near. The sky is a clear cobalt blue with strokes of violet and pink shooting through.

"So?" She says acidly not even looking up, not even shivering the slightest as his lips swoop by the nape of her neck.

"Nothing at all Darlin'. Just an observation is all." The warm flowing South in his voice, making you think of sweltering heat, Magnolia trees and tall glasses of lemonade. God, she must have watched _'Gone with the wind'_ one time too many.

This must be one of his smartest tricks, the passing himself off as all folksy and lowbrow when really he must have come from money at one point. Why else would a grifter have bothered with his mother?

The mischievous licks of his eyes on her skin, the hunger in him for something much more, than the physical gratification. That clumsy, undisguised craving.

And so they play. A gentle kind of warfare, spirited stealth attacks, little nicks and cuts. Relentless goading and mocking. Because that's the only way they know.

….

She passes him in the living room, towel and clothes in her arms, on the way to take a shower. And he comes in too close, invading her space, head bent as if talking to her shoulder.

"Doc still ain't back Pumpkin…" His warm breath and the spicy smell of tobacco making her want to turn around and taste him.

"Why? You miss him Sawyer?"

"Nope, but I might just have picked up a few novel ideas from Ms. Collins." he whispers against her neck.

"Nah, as tempting as that sounds… I need to wash my hair…"

"Well that just happens to be my specialty." The puff of air on her skin as he rounds her. Making her shut her eyes for an instant, wanting to reach out and yank him back by his shirt.

"No thanks I think I can manage."

Him and her. Scalding, scorching. The way they play. Has to stop herself from turning around. She knows what he looks like. She can hear it exactly. Makes himself macho, shoulders thrown back, thumbs hooked inside his belt. That slight limping walk he's got as if there is something wrong with his limbs. Yeah. She knows that's what he looks like. Right now. Even with her eyes fixed on the bathroom door.

"Just holler if you need a _hand_ Darling!"

_Oh_, he's so enjoying the emphasis on _hand_, smug bastard.

* * *

Later, she hears him rumbling around, blundering around in the shower. Plonks herself down on the living-room hardwood sofa , on his spot and waits. He doesn't disappoint. Far from it.

Comes out in a mist of steam. His hair wet, slicked back, smelling like a cloud of soap. Fresh and clean and boyish. He changes right in front of her as she sits there quietly, pretending to read. The dog-eared and yellowed Jackie Collins' paperback, the faint whiff of mould from its pages.

"Pretty steamy stuff…" she grins waving it at him.

Thinking of nothing else than that she ought to stand up. Right now. Ought to swallow her shyness and all the reservations she has about him. It would only take three or four steps, and she'd be there. Could reach up to where the edge of his towel is tucked in, loosen it up. He'd be secretly thrilled but he'd say something crude, something sly to make her blush. And that's what he does, exactly when her fantasy reaches a crucial stage.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you all day long Freckles…" The drawn out vowels, the way he has of pronouncing every word as if they were an invitation. A prelude to sex.

Steps into his black boxers and tugs them up with a lecherous wink her way, letting the towel fall as soon as he's yanked them up above his hips. She makes a the big effort of rolling her eyes as he demonstratively adjusts the bulge, giving her his best smirk. _He's such a tease._

"Doc's still ain't nowhere to be seen…" he says out of the blue, as if he's just remembered that this is how the script is supposed to be. Or probably just for the hell of it. Just for fun.

How his skin stretches across his midriff as he pulls the t-shirt over his head. A grayish blue, that makes her nostalgic for something. _She has no idea what._

"Isn't he?" Dumb. Distracted. Can't do anything about it.

How he wets his lips as he registers her eyes on him, just a swift sweep with the tip of the tongue. Something infuriatingly arousing about it. The way he raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement of her wayward gaze.

"Yep. We've got the whole house to ourselves… Just saying. Is all."

Reaches for his jeans, fixing the belt around them and she can't help imagining how all of that came apart this morning, in a daze. Her eyes automatically drawn to his flies. _Shit._ She's reduced to this.

"Page 104 is my favorite Freckles."

Caught out. Makes herself look down on the book in her hands, seeing at the corner of her eye how he forks his hand through his slicked back hair, admiring the clear-cut lines and angles of his face.

"Well, you've earmarked it so it must be a pretty good page…" Tries to sound bland, casual. Doesn't know what's so racy about a man combing his wet hair with his fingers. _But it is. _Has to cross her legs tightly.

That arrogance and that natural sensual energy he's got. How he'd dropped his act completely, lying there with her this morning.

"Yeah, scintillating stuff."

Skims the page and doesn't have to read much to feel her cheeks heat up. And he certainly doesn't help with that wolfish smile on his face.

"Hey why don't you borrow it? It'll keep you from pacing. Always fancied the idea of a book club…"

Quick as a flash, picking up a pack of cigarettes and, condoms while still smiling at her. Sticking them in his back pocket. She tries to figure out if he's shaved without letting her gaze linger too long.

"Where are you going?" She wants to hit herself for blurting it out like that. Like a jealous wife. Suddenly panicking at the thought of being left behind here - alone. Nothing to do but to think and wallow. And the condoms… _what the..?_ feels her stomach tighten at the thought of him. With someone else.

"Out."

"Oh."

"Oh. _Oh_… _you_ mean with _this_?" he says bluntly pointing at his back pocket with his thumb. "Well, never know what may happen, ain't that right Freckles?"

Envious at who ever might be unfortunate enough to catch his attention tonight. He ought to come with a mandatory warning sticker. _Conceited bastard_. It stings that he's even considering it. _The condoms._

"Well… you didn't…When we…"

Thinks he's such a hot shot. What happened this morning, it hadn't felt casual and at the time it had seemed anything but meaningless to him. But perhaps that's just her interpretation. He's good at pretending after all and maybe she's gotten it all wrong.

"Ah… well. I would have if I'd had half a brain or at least been awake," he says as if it was her fault, really.

He makes to leave. And she knows she has no right to him. She's laid no claim on this man. Has an unreasonable impulse to stop him, wondering what it might take. _Stay. Stay._

He stoops low to put on his shoes and she can't resist staring at him bending down, the tell-tale outline of the cigarette pack and its little square friend at the back of his denims. And then. _Astonishingly_, with one foot outside the door.

"What's this about Honeypie? Not pissed at me anymore...?"

She shrugs and pretends to leaf through pages of the book. Can't look at him any longer. _No, she's not pissed_. Just scared and hoping he will see through it.

"You wanna' tag along?" Pushing his cheek out with the tip of his tongue so that it bulges. Hair still wet falling into his face. "Might as well be pissed at me while doing something instead of sitting here getting all hot and bothered in Ms. Collins' company... nice thought as that is an' all…"

"I would… but I wouldn't like to be the one to ruin your game," she says tartly as if it hadn't even occurred to her. He turns back to her, smiling properly now, a large alligator-like smile that tickles her to smile back.

"You're _**always**_ ruining my game… Come on Cinderella, let's get you dolled up and go out and paint the town red. I reckon we both need it."

* * *

"I have nothing to wear…" she pouts and he gets a kick out of it, how typically female it is to bitch and moan about clothes when she has the ugly suitcase smockfull of crap. The way she pretends she isn't eager to go out with him, not delighted that he asked. But he sees right through her now. That stunt with the condoms, _hah_, it had stumped her for sure.

He digs in her suitcase and finds some kind of slinky cream-colored fabric, god knows what it's called. Silk perhaps. Though, fuck, it could be made from the hoofs of a unicorn for all that he cares - as long as she puts it on.

"What's this?" He holds it up, a little confused by how much he's enjoying this. The anticipation of just going out with her. Realizes that they've never really done anything like this before, him and her.

"It's called a dress."

"Hardy-har, aren't we witty? Put it on!" Excited by the newness of it all. Something they haven't yet manage to wreck.

"Nah…that's not really my style…"

"What are you talking about? It's a half-decent rag, put it on!"

_Hah._ And they are back. 380 degree turn-around in the matter of twenty four hours. Back right where they started. Back to the buzzing sensation of promises and possibilities being flung between them.

Jack is here, somewhere in Bali. But _she_, she's here with him. And he aims to end the night in the exact manner that it began.

_It would be wrong not to._

She puts her hair up as he sits on her bed, an unfamiliar ache in his chest. Her slim neck, little wisps of her hair escaping the sloppy arrangement at the back of her head.

Watches as she leans into her mirror, applying a red lipstick looking oddly groomed and done up. And he can't wait to mess it all up. Will have her moaning against his mouth before this evening is over.

…

_Crazy._ Crazy how a dress and some heels can make you salivate, can make your head spin as you look at her. Relishing in how people, men and women alike, turn, actually frigging swirl around to stare at her as they pass through a crowd. Wants to put his arm around her.

_Mine._

But she isn't his. Never was. _How had he not known about the pregnancy? _Self centered asshole that's what he is. Thinks he can read people, always thought he had her all sassed out. Had been so damn smug, thinking he could see right through her. _Damn it. _He should have known she was lying. Funny, that it should be that easy to con a con.

They find a bar, not a dainty little beach bar, but a top-notch fancy place of the type he didn't even think existed here. Sleek and elegant, people dressed up their teeth and she's not out of place here, though he definitely is. Her straight dress, classic and slim and knee-length. It drapes around the shoulders, skims her figure perfectly. Her ass, rounded and high and the way it looks when she walk, slippery fabric moving. That curve from waist to buttocks, just a perfect slant, the type that just begs to be touched._ And shit. _Shit with the desire that just clings onto him. That makes it hard to think.

Bad enough the way he. _Loves . Her. _The protectiveness that has nothing to do with ownership, though it's that too.

_She's mine._

Jealous, even when he looses her attention for two minutes, as she stops to talk to the bartender.

They drink. Nothing shoddy, not beer or plain vodka. Girly colorful drinks that he's almost embarrassed to order, Margaritas, Cuba Libres, Martinis with the strangest things in them. One after another, working their way through the drink menu until frankly, they are both quite drunk. She, in a fizzy, excited playful way and he, in a more somber manner. They don't talk much, the loud music working as a buffer, a protective distraction. Just finds himself catching her eyes over and over again.

_You're mine. Mine._ The only coherent thought he can produce when she does that thing. The little wrinkle of the nose and the big square teeth. And he can't believe a girl like _her. _With all the crap that must have happened to her, can still have a smile like that_. As if all is well in the world. _

And there is a realization slowly growing, quietly creeping upon him, too diffuse to define yet. Just the feeling that disguised in the delicious shape of a girl, deep beneath all that velvety skin of hers, is a stone-hard core of resilience and strength.

He holds his glass with both hands, so hard, he's afraid he might crush it. It's either that or they will make a run for it. Aching to find their way to her. The play of shadow and shine of the fabric around her breasts. Even the way her fingertips whisk by his wrist or his arm every now and then. Her slightly pointy knees just beneath the hem of that dress. _It's all of it._ Visits the restroom, the kinetic tension getting to him. Considers jacking off for a second, and though normally he'd have no such hang-ups, it feels vulgar and cheap_. _Not the kind of thing he'd want to remember about this evening. And he comes out, exactly as he was; horny, zippy and frustrated as hell.

They leave the bar and Bali's jet-setters behind, sauntering unsteadily southwards. The beach is empty here, they hardly meet anyone, only the lights of café's and resorts a bit further ahead.

And they knew this was coming. The drink making them braver. They drop down in the sand, side by side. Shoes off. Feet burrowing down to the cold humid layers underneath. The atmosphere, electrical and sizzling.

She throws herself backwards. Lies there in the sand, hair like a fan around her head, silky dress gleaming silver in the faint light from the beach path and the moon. Can't do anything but lie down right next to her. Not reaching for her, just laying there, eyes fastened on the night sky. Like an indigo cupola above them, splattered with tiny little lights.

And he wants to think of nothing but how her hipbones jut like soft sand dunes under the slinky fabric. Wants to finally reach for her, wants an outlet for the agitation he feels. A mixture of desire and anxiety. The thought of it nagging him, jabbing at the back of his mind, all the time.

He's not upset about the kid. _Hell no_, he ain't ever had the urge to procreate. But he'd be lying if he said he doesn't feel a sense of loss. He's surprised by the simmering anger behind it all. Abstract and confusing, because he's got no one to blame for this, spare the asshole who knocked her up in the first place.

"You really thought I was looking to dump your pert behind on Jackass like some kind of pass-me-down ?" he lets out before he can stop himself. But it's weighting on him. That she'd think that about him.

No reply and it's just as well. He gets his cigarettes outs. It seems the perfect pastime, lying here in the sand next to her. Him smoking, her like some gorgeous mermaid washed ashore in that shimmering cream dress.

"What are you so damned scared of Freckles?"

Quiet for an excruciating moment before she turns her head towards him. Light falling in a thin strip just across her cheekbone, the rest in relative darkness, just a vague play of shadows.

"_You."_

"Aw hell, I'm just a big dumb puppy dog, you know that Sugarpie…"

But he isn't. He's hurt her before. He knows it and she knows it. She's right to be cautious of him.

"I know…" Can just about make out how her chest rises and falls. "So, you were really hoping for some action tonight, were you?"

The condoms. _Ha, yeah if she only knew_. He's so screwed. She has ruined him for anyone else. Wants her. _Her._

"Is that your way of saying you wanna' have me all to your self Freckles?" Better keep it light. Keep it flowing. These things, they'd never say if they were sober.

"Something tells me monogamy and James Ford are two concept that don't go together," she says with a snort and he wishes it were true. It was easier back then, when women were interchangeable, to earn a living or just for a quick mindless release. When he could screw a girl and not spend a second thinking about her afterwards.

"Ya think? Well you'd be surprised... "

"_James_..." Cutting him off. It's a polite 'shut up'.

Something unreal, abstract about it all. Him and her – here. Too drunk to be smart, too buzzed to pretend too hard.

"I'd… take care of you…" _That's the goddamn truth_. He would. Tirelessly. The best he could, which isn't saying much.

"I don't need taking care of…"

Her pig-headed answer, a twisted aphrodisiac that has him cracking up.

"_Don't_ I know it!"

And because he's drunk and she's drunk and some protective layers have been shed, it doesn't seem too hard all of a sudden. The sand the night and the drink. Whispering, talking, things they might not normally say.

"Hey look… I was an ass back then…." he says, more to the night-sky above him than to her. And she doesn't answer at first but she does the weirdest little sideways tilt of the head, lowering her eyelids at the same time as if hoping it will just flow on by_. _

"When?"

_Good question. _He's an ass about every single time they talk and then some. He knows that.

"Back on the island, at the barracks, you and me… You know, with the…" Ah shit. It shouldn't be this hard. Drags on his clove cigarette, delighting in the sweet spiciness on his own lips. _They must dip these damn things in sugar._

"I thought you said sorry doesn't suit you." She's still buzzed and happy in spite of the serious tone and it makes it all the harder. Can't go into depth, she won't allow him.

"Well did you hear me say 'sorry'?" he scoffs because that's just what he does.

"No, no I can't say I've ever heard you say it," she say's flippantly.

"Well, for what it's worth - I am."

"You're what?" Teasing now. Bet she tastes like sugar too. Wants to, roll over, dip his head down and check. But the fragile conspiring closeness they have right now seems more important and he has to talk while he still has the balls.

"I'm sorry alright!" he mutters, pretending to be pissed that she actually made him say it.

They're drunk, drunk and stupid, and hell he doesn't even care that Jack is here, somewhere in Bali. Because she's here – with him.

"It doesn't matter any more Sawyer…" she whispers as if she means it but it might just be the booze. Wonders if it's forgiveness or denial. But hell, maybe it doesn't matter, not to look a gift horse in the mouth and all that.

"It does. It does to me." Thinking in his liquored-up stupidity that he will make it up to her. Deluding himself that he actually can.

_Supine. _Like a dream. Can barely make out her eyes in the darkness but he can see the teeth, knows that she is giving him one of those dumb-ass grins that run from East to West like a great fucking canyon across her face.

"Love it when you're drunk Sawyer..." Deriding snicker that he could swoon over. She's so damn beautiful lying there, teeth gleaming in the darkness like a predator preparing to pounce.

"Bet you do Sugar…" His sick mind instantly thinking of Jack and his little problem. Wonders briefly if she's being sarcastic. But it sure as hell doesn't seem like it, the way she sneaks her hand across the sand finding his. Fingers a little sandy, a little humid. Perverted ideas come next, and then memories of what a nuisance those little grain of sand can be, when ground into the wrong places.

"Yeah, you become all sappy and sentimental..." He pulls her fingers towards his mouth, wants to smell them. Coaches her hand open and his lips at the center of it, letting her hush his words.

"That's me Darlin', I ain't denying it. All heart." The planned kiss inside of her palm turning into a smile.

Her laughter like an invitation. It says; _come on, come in, come on inside._

Wants to haul her near, run his hands up her legs, imagines she'd let him, just lie there expectantly if he were to shove her gorgeous dress upwards.

"Hey, that… hell, I mean, this morning…"

"I feel another sorry coming on." She seems to relish in her advantage over him.

"Well what can I say, I'm on a roll." Feigning a sulk.

"You just want me to tell you what a stud you were, don't you?"

"Nah, I know you liked it. Seen you checking me out Sweets. All day long, plotting and planning how to snare me into your bed for another round."

"Hah, yeah, that's what I've been doing all day, conspiring to seduce you." Thinks she rolls her eyes at that but maybe that's just his imagination or how well he knows her.

"So, Honeybug, you tell Jack...? About us?"

"No."

Short and concise, well no guessing needed there.

"And why the heck not?"

"'Cause I'm not sure..." she says quietly and he holds his breath. Here is where she tells him she doesn't want him and that it was all a big sleepy mistake.

"I'm not sure what that was… this morning... What is this James?"

Strangely timid. Her turn to move her fingers across his knuckles, outlining the ridges, thumb pressing into the middle of his palm. As if looking for reassurance.

_She must be dense if she ain't got it yet._

"It's whatever the hell you want it be. _You_ know that."

It's true, whatever she wants to take from him, she can have it. He's a fucking yard sale and he won't ask for much in return, she can have him for a song and a dance. She can do exactly as she goddamn pleases with him.

And she must be thinking the same. Forgets to breathe when she pulls her knees up pushes up her skirt a little, does a sort of wiggling movement lifting her hips up. And off comes her goddamn underwear. Thrown somewhere, hell he doesn't care if he ever sees them again. Better like this. Shit. _How she does that_. Goes from shy and coy to sexual fantasy. And they haven't even kissed yet. The beach empty and deserted. Just the two of them. Inebriated and high on having her here, their tentative, soft-footed intimacy. A possibility of something waiting just around the corner.

Can't think of anything to say except to exhale fast as hell. Seems to be the only appropriate response.

Aroused in more than the sexual sense. Thinking of how they might be tonight, how it may be different from this morning. Hurried and clamant and alarmingly wanting. Like he knows it can be with them. But just as he rolls around on his side, thinking; _enough with all the talking, _reaching for her waist to follow through in that idea...

She pulls away.

Like shoving a bucket of crushed ice down the back of your shirt.

She sits up abruptly, her eyes drawn to the voices up there. Thrusting his hands away as if they were annoying insects, _and like that_. Just like that. She's up on her feet, scanning the beach up by the nearest café', squinting her eyes at a group of people walking slowly there. Tugging her dress down, sweeping her ass with her hand to brush away the sand. Lies there with a glorious view up her legs, like a damned turtle on his back. Throws up his hands.

_Fuck._

"Aww, come _on_! What's wrong _this time_!"

But she doesn't answer, sets off in a sprint, kicking up sand as she goes, like a spitfire across the beach. _Shit._ Doesn't even know what happened there. _What's with the fucking running?_ Always.

Watches in disbelief, actually stands up to rub his eyes with his fingers. It all happens so quickly. And he might be getting old because he ain't catching on. And there she is; throwing herself into that group of people, pulling it apart. Tearing someone out.

The silhouette of her, lithe girl arms and legs as she grabs someone. Dragging the person out of it. His feet that don't get it. A little disoriented, alcohol and mere shock. Stands there just gaping at it, not understanding at first. Sets off running like a fucking maniac towards the tornado of limbs and sand and hair. A crowd gathering around them.

Her at the centre - at the core of a vicious fight. It's so fast and sharp, he has a hard time figuring out what exactly is happening. Her fists flying and he's been on the receiving end of those little hard-knuckled fists, knows the damage they can make. Because she's not scared. Doesn't care if she gets hurt. And she's a dangerous opponent because of it. The crunching and the kicking the twisting. And all he can think is that nobody better catch a glimpse up her fucking dress. Someone screaming but it isn't her. Isn't her voice. Sees her bringing down her head, hitching it down in that quick move she's got. Crunching into the other persons face_. Another girl._ Pushes his way through the spectators.

"_Christ!"_

Close enough now. Tries to target her cream colored dress in there in the whirl of fists and legs and sand. Grabs it, holding on for dear life, adrenaline pumping through him. Yanking her away hard, literally lifting her up by the neck. _A spitting hissing wild cat._

"No! Let go of me!"

Drags her, almost carries her under his arm, tugging her dress down while trying to hold onto her. Still fighting, squirming, spitting, trying to snake her way out of his grip. The way she fights, it makes it almost impossible to hold on without hurting her. He thinks he spots someone from among the onlookers rushing forward to the girl. Someone familiar.

But he can't stop now, can't stop to check. Has to get her away from the crowd. Heaves her away from the light, lugs her up a dark side alley, leading away form the beach. Shoving her ahead of him, almost running. Forces her down there, on a low stone wall, the light dim enough, the only source a street light a bit further in. Leans his entire weight against her to make her calm down. Doesn't let go until she's stopped fighting him and he feels her almost relax. The only thing audible his and her breath, heavy and rattled. The realization that they're both barefoot. Shoes god knows where, down the beach somewhere.

"Fuck! What the fuck is _**wrong**_ with you!" Holds onto her shoulders because he's still scared she will make a run for it. And he actually shakes her. Wants to knock some damn sense into her. _Stupid, stupid girl._

"It was _**her**_!" Panting still, a little grumpy voice, thick syrupy blood dripping from her nose, throwing off his hands. Unselfconsciously rubs the blood away with the back of her hand.

"Who the hell is _'her'_!" His fingers around her chin, forces her face upwards, sideways towards the light, so that he can look at it. The damage. This damaged that she has caused herself. Head-butted some girl so hard she's probably given herself a concussion. It scares him, this self-destructive violence of her. _Fighting at any cost._

"Dewi. It was _Dewi._"

"Oh hell… What the _**hell **_where you _**thinking**_?" grumbling now. Without really realizing it, he has done that disgusting thing that mothers do, spit on his thumb and drawn it under her nose, her cheek. Wiping off some blood and dirt in the process.

"She… she was in on it." She swats his hand away, sniveling, glowering at him. Pissed because he didn't let her beat the crap out of some girl.

"Yeah of course she was. So _**what**_!… do you think getting yourself in the slammer would help? Ya' think she'd tell you something useful while you were knocking her goddamn teeth out?"

_Stupid, stupid girl._

Mouth in a thin angry line, scowling at him now, eyes a bit misty. But not from sadness. Just the kind of cloudiness that irrational fury will bring. _Not a pretty sight. _Bloody and dirty, the cream fabric of the dress ripped and soiled, dark red blood spots all across the front where her nose is still dripping. He takes a step back now. Can't be near her. _Shit._

_You're mine. _

If only he could believe that. _He's so screwed. Not a shred of dignity left._

Picks up his cigarettes, lights one, hands shaking like goddamn leafs, heart vibrating in his chest. Eyes on her knees, scraped and cut in the chaos too. She just sits there, bloody and filthy. Waits for him to finish his smoke.

_Calm as a June bug. Damn her. _

In the taxi home, they don't speak, sit at opposite ends of the seat. The air in the cab moist and sickly sweet, an overpowering smell of jasmine from some kind of air freshener. The intimate atmosphere gone. And him thinking that shit. _Shit_. This won't ever work. They are too similar, too clumsy, too unstable. Him and his stupid thoughtless mouth always yapping away. And she, hell, she's too messed-up. _Who the hell does that?_ What kind of woman just attacks another girl like that? A pang of longing for simpler days, _for Juliet._ The calm waters that she commands.

And at the same time. That instinct so strong, it levels out, squashes everything else. The wanting to just take care of this mess.

_Wanting her to be his._

Making him slide his hand over the warm rubbery surface of the backseat, trying to find her in the darkness. Thinks she'll push it away and is startled when she clutches on to it instead. Something of desperation in the way she holds on, squeezing so hard it almost hurts. Her profile, lit up by the passing cars outside, head held back, nose in the air.

_Mine._

….

_

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_

_Thanks for reading. Hoping you liked it. Drop me a line if you did..._


	25. Another swerve

_Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the great, sweet reviews! I've been really bad at answering lately but it doesn't mean I haven't read and re-read everything you've written in normal obsessive manner.… _

_Scotty; as usual you make a very valid point. Sawyer wouldn't have been too surprised by Kate's violent tendencies. Wanted to get across his fear over Kate assaulting someone in public since she's a fugitive and all. But maybe a bit sloppy writing on my part..._

_HeartInCage; I'm glad/sad that you liked that last chapter. I do relate to her. A lot actually. That's probably why I don't see her as a complete victim and why I want there to be hope for her...if that makes sense? _

_Delamik; Yeah.. I always thought it seemed to fit that Kate might have had pregnancy related problems... _

_And so sorry, I'm way late with updating. Life has gotten in the way completely. Anyhow, I really hope you will enjoy this and not tear your hair out over the infuriating fickleness of these characters. _

_Rating: M for language and sexual references… quite a few as it turns out, though most of them imagined. _

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it is._

**

* * *

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**Another swerve  
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* * *

They get home and he topples over one of the armchairs as they enter the dark house, making a hell of a racket.

The door to Miles' room flies open, the light is switched on, flooding the living room in a way that makes her want to cower behind Sawyer. Jack's sleepy face surveying them from top to toe and she doesn't blame him for the faint look of disgust. _They must look like crap_. Her dress, bloody and torn and his shirt, flecked and soiled. Both missing shoes and both of them plain drunk. Neither completely able to refrain from swaying. Sawyer has a steady grip around her waist and frankly it doesn't really help all that much, just doubles the frequency of tripping up.

"What? What happened to her? Is she okay?"

Realizes that if she never has to see Jack's forehead in those concerned folds again, she'll be quite happy. Sober enough to find it immensely irking that he asks _Sawyer_, not her. As if she is not entirely sane, as if her answer couldn't be trusted.

"Run into a spot of trouble. Go back to sleep Doc!" He's bearish and abrupt and she can tell that his patience is already way below zero.

"What do you mean 'trouble'? Has she been in an accident?" He comes nearer, puts a hand on her naked arm that makes her cringe. He must sense it because he pulls it back quickly.

_Go away Jac_k, she thinks and this is new, this intolerance to him. Maybe it's all the alcohol consumed, or the fact that he stands there wringing his hands like a disapproving father.

"Nope – entirely and totally self inflicted Jacky-boy." That ornate way that Sawyer has. As if he's permanently on a scene, always in the spotlight. It's annoying as hell and she doesn't know why she lets him answer on her behalf. It ought to have her seething but she's too wiped out to deal with Jack right now. Too tired to pretend to be that person he expects.

"Self inflicted? She did _that _too herself?"

"Our girl fell off a bar stool. Drunk as a boiled owl, ain't you just Freckles?" And she'll be damned if he didn't' just pat her behind in an incredibly condescending way.

But as annoying as this is; Jack paddling after them and Sawyer ushering her ahead towards the kitchen like a wayward child, she has to admit that she's finding a certain entertainment value in this little rude exchange. Jack and his 'take-charge' attitude, almost pushing Sawyer out of the way. As if the two of them are trying their best to play the worst version of themselves. And perhaps they are.

"Here, I'll do it…I'll clean her up, if you can get me some cotton and …" A dismissive hand-wave in Sawyer's direction.

"Nah, I've _**got**_ it. I'll fix her up." Roughly yanking her with him. As if he'd rather hurt her then let Jack get near. Something primitive about the two of them, plainly more interested in winning some macho competition for dominance than taking care of her.

"But… I can…"

"You go and catch some sleep Doc," Sawyer snaps and she thinks that as vile as he is, he might be the lesser of two evils. Too drunk and too tired to deal with Jack's intrusive eyes. His judgmental silence, so unlike Sawyer's bitching. There is a strange comfort in the way he scolds her. The way a mother-hen might fuss over her chicks. A little bit rough, nagging and badgering. An irritated impatience covering up something real. Something warm.

She can tell that Jack hesitates for a moment.

"It's okay Jack," she mumbles. "I'm alright really."

"Go on now Doc, I might not have a goddamn medical degree but I _**do **_think I'm capable of cleaning up after a little cat-fight. Happens to be my forte as a matter of fact..."

That arrogance he's got. Impossible to argue with. She would laugh but her face hurts way too much. He's warm and solid against her side and she finds herself missing him when he suddenly lets go and shoves her ahead of him, a forceful hand on the small of her back.

"You sure Kate?" Jack asks softly. She can only manage a half nod, trying to keep her head back, the sickening taste of blood flowing from nose into mouth, less messy than the outside route. Though her dress is already ruined anyway, big red blotches on the cream silk fabric, a ripped seam all the way from the hem up to her thigh_. _

_Oh, he's got to love that._

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Goodnight Jack, sorry if we woke you..."

Sawyer snorts at that. Jack retiring quietly, admitting defeat. She has to roll her eyes at Sawyer's victorious smirk when the lock of Jack's door clicks closed out there. Left alone, the two of them, suddenly he's no longer the sleazy macho fighting for the scraps of a girl. _He's all business_. Waits as she enters the kitchen in front of him. Giving her a little faux polite bow of the head and gesturing towards the kitchen counter.

"After you Ma'm…"

"Asshole."

"I get called that a lot lately, which is funny seeing as how _I'm_ the asshole who made your little faint heart flutter this very morning."

"Ha, yeah and the very same who stomped on it afterwards."

"If you say so… Have a seat Rocky! If you're good I might read you a chapter from our favorite book later."

He signs to her to jump up on the kitchen counter. And why on earth she obeys, she doesn't know, only that it's irresistible in an aggravating way. Him and her, _here_.

"Great. Can't wait," she mutters.

He opens one of the cabinets, takes out a box. His hair, shiny with little tiny grains of sand glimmering under the sharp kitchen-light. His hands, the long fingers, opening up that first aid kit, getting the cotton swabs out, the iodine. He's done this before, she reflects. Probably been in enough bar fights. Or maybe helped Juliet out, at the clinic. But she doesn't want to think of that now. Not now when his soft big palm comes up to rest on her brow, bending her head backwards, eyes a dark gray and squinting at her as if he's trying not to smack her himself.

"You _**looking**_ to get caught?"

"Nope."

"Well it sure as hell looked like it to _me_. Thought you were gonna' kill that girl!"

Turns on the faucet and runs one hand under it while still keeping the other on her forehead. Wipes her entire face by just using his large wet palm, forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut. Finding a simple animalistic pleasure in this. Her knees against his thighs, sitting there on the low counter. Trying not to swing her legs against the kitchen cabinets beneath.

"I would have… if some big oaf hadn't pulled me off," she mumbles into the warm skin of his hand. Suddenly wants to kiss it. He smells like lemons and salt. The way it feels against her lips, the little lines and wrinkles inside of it.

He laughs at that, a narrow stingy laughter, as if he doesn't want to give her too much leeway. Wants to gripe and grouse a little more.

"I ain't giving you no conjugal visits at the Bali Hilton Princess…"

"Wasn't counting on it." Resisting sticking her tongue out to taste his hand. It's silly, is what it is. The love and the desire for him, hopelessly interwoven. Impossible to distinguish the two. But there is something else as well. Being taken care of like this. A memory of something. Maybe her mother, though her mother was never this gentle. Cleaning her up after a fall from her bike, from the rough and tumble she'd inevitably been drawn to. The scolding and patching up.

"I reckon you gonna' have a pretty nice shiner by tomorrow…"

He puts some iodine on a cotton bud and draws it against the cut across her nose where she'd smashed into Dewi's skull. It's funny how he's the one grimacing, not her. The icy coolness against her skin, stinging a little as he rubs lightly across a gash. Dabs repeatedly at her nostrils that just don't want to stop oozing thick crimson red.

"Remind me to never cross you again girl…"

Tears off two little pieces of cotton, rolls them cylinder shaped. Stuffs the little rolls gently, one into each nostril. His face above hers, hair swinging forward, tickling her face. _Pissed and edgy_. Eyes sourly on the task at hand. And she can't help it, her eyes drawn to his lips. Watching the rough texture of them, a little dry, a little chapped. His front teeth that bite down into the bottom lip as he concentrates, a tiny little chip missing. His eyes hitching on hers for a second. God knows she isn't exactly a temptation right now, and as absurd as the notion is, she still she gets the feeling he's about to kiss her. Too close. It makes her nervous. Impossible to sit still.

"Christ! You're like a worm on a hook the way you squirm."

She's got no idea know why she does it, maybe it's simply the beauty of those hands. Or that she's drunk and reckless. When he brings a clean cotton bud and some more iodine up to her face for a third time, she catches on to his wrist. Making him drop everything on the floor.

_The way he frets over her._

"What the… If you ain't gonna' sit still, I'll have to get Jackass," he mutters. "An' you know how much he's gonna' _**love**_ that."

But he comes back up, presses himself nearer to her. Purposely wedging himself between her legs, making the slippery fabric of the dress slither up over her thighs. Comes closer yet, hard against her now, leaning onto her. She opens up, purposely embracing him between her thighs and his scowl falls away a little. But he keeps the act up. The cool cotton, his fingertips wiping across her brow, more a caress than medical care. The proximity of him, his face a few inches from hers. Acutely aware of her nakedness under the dress.

Has to force herself to breathe slowly through her mouth and not push against him but it's impossible. He stops what he's doing and presses back. A little huff, escaping his lips. _And oh, if she only dared._ If only she were braver. She'd have kissed him then, would have unfastened his belt and undone the buttons on his jeans. Wouldn't have given a hoot to whether Jack might be coming prancing in any second. The heat growing, unbearably adamant. If only she were braver, or drunker she'd have done something about it. And maybe he's thinking the same because he shuts his eyes tightly only to open them again. Just stands there looking at her as if he's about to say something, lips a little pointed. Her own fear mirrored in his gaze. Hesitating. Eyes, a dusky sad blue. _Come, come._

Maybe it's the adrenaline shock from the fight or maybe it's just him. _Wants him._ In spite of everything. Like this morning. His jeans against the insides of her bare thighs. Wants to whisper; _come, come, come. _Clasps her hands against the edge of the counter not to touch him.

He leans a little backwards, pretending to study her nose, a minute little movement of the hips almost sending her off.

"Damned, that snout is swollen Freckles. Ain't sure it will ever be the same again. This what they call poetic justice huh…?"

He pulls away just enough to break the contact of denim against sultry, humming need. The moment lost. That second of opportunity when she could have just reached for him. Could have let the tip of her tongue moisten his dry lips. Could have gone for it.

He chucks the used cotton buds towards the sink beside her, not caring that he misses it by a few feet.

"Guess so," she concedes, sounding congested and stuffed and a little silly with those cotton rolls sticking out of her nose. The moment is definitely gone. _Guess he's not really turned on by the whole beat-up boxer thing._ It makes her snort and he glares at her.

"Hey, don't want those things coming flying out like projectiles. Gross enough as it is."

_Admonishing_. But the way he looks at her. His fingers on her arm for just a fraction of a time, they say something else. And so does the way his chest rises and falls. THe breaks the eye contact first, jerks his head towards her legs so that his fringe whisks by her face.

"Better take care of those knees of yours as well. Wouldn't wanna' leave sand and crap stuck in them… Have Doc nag about infection… an' how I didn't do a good job an' all…"

The scratches and cuts, not sure when she got them. The fight, a complete blur like they always are for her. They don't really hurt in any case, just a light throbbing that could easily be ignored. Especially with him here. His shirt ruined by her blood. She'll wash it for him in the morning. Will repay him for this, somehow.

He bends down there on the floor, sits up on his haunches and she realizes that he has an excellent view up her skirt, which he acknowledges with that leer of his, dimples digging deep into his cheeks. A little throaty '_u-ummm_' before she quickly draws her knees together pulling at the hem. He places his palm against the side of her kneecap Wonders if he'll venture up, if it's that kind of mood he's in. _And sure enough._ He clears his throat and the fingers sweep in under, up her thigh. Hears him draw his breath deeply, as if regretting the rash movement. Fingers pulled away. His moment of weakness, it's brief and then he's back to business, cleans the scrapes carefully, briskly, his hands gentle, but it stings like hell anyway and she can't help wincing. He won't have any of that.

"Cut it out Freckles. You wanna' play rough, these are the consequences. Just saying… I'd had _**my**_ way we'd be making out in the sand right now but _**no**_, you had to go an' instigate a goddamn fisticuff…"

"Seems a fisticuff might have been the infinitely more satisfying option… " She means it to come out mockingly but he grins at her and smugly plasters a couple of nice large band aids on, finishing off with a kiss. Carefully placed right on top of her knee-caps, one on each. A little patronizing slap on her thigh as he stands up.

"If you say so Shortcake. Anyhows… I'd say you're good to go."

And it's a sort of cease-fire. None of them says anything else. He just throws an arm around her waist and swings her down. Doesn't let go and she finds herself, standing there, chest to chest with him, breathing through her mouth. Notices that he does the same, though he has no valid reason to. Hot breath against hot breath. Her nostrils stuffed with cotton, her dress a bloody mess and this man. This man that puts the J into jerk, the astonishing sweetness of him.

He brings his fingers up to her brow, one arm still holding on to her, around her waist pressing her against him. Fingertips following her hairline, brushing away strands sticking to her forehead. He's so close. The texture if his skin in the sharp kitchen light, smooth and honeyed. Only the fine lines around his eyes betraying his age. Rough short stubble that divulges a darker secret than the blonde hair on his head wants to profess to.

And it seems too much to let go now, but neither of them have what it takes to get over the awkwardness.

"Let's sleep," he says simply. And she wants to ask; _is he coming with her_?

_Come, come, come._

Wants to reach up, flit her lips across his. And he looks almost shy standing there. Now that his fingers have smoothed away her hair from her brow, he doesn't seem to know what to do next.

He lets go.

All of a sudden, retracting his hands, stepping back. A silent question in his eyes but he says nothing more. She ends up just standing there like a big pathetic idiot. Nose jam-packed with cotton, watching his back, broad and a little sloping, disappearing through the doorway.

Wants to call him back. Run after him. Stay.

* * *

But she knows him.

He's never one to just leave things be. He won't quit in the middle of a winning streak. He'll come back for more.

And she doesn't have to wait long. She hardly has time to throw herself fully dressed, headlong on the bed, before he walks straight into her bedroom as if he's got all the right in the world to be there.

Book in his hand, balancing it as he quickly slips his shirt over his head, freeing his arms from it. Her blood on him, ruby spots all across the front and his shoulders. Drops it on the floor and she blushes stupidly when he starts unbuckling his belt, one-handed unbuttoning of his denims. How he has corrupted her. His overt glee over her discomfort. The corner of his mouth tugged upwards. Self-assured. Knows how she can't deny him. Steps out of his jeans there and then, struggling to tug them over his feet. Looses his cool a bit to her great satisfaction, wobbling on the floor. His head bent downwards, honey-blonde hair in his face catching the light from her night lamp.

"What are you doing?" Hardly the time for romance. Her nose as big as a melon. But then again, the skin, impossibly fine for a man. There is just so much of it, smooth caramel toffee. And she knows he doesn't taste like that. Knows he doesn't smell like that either. That fragrance of his; in stark contrast to the maple syrup dreams his skin evokes. But no less irresistible. Spicy, sensual and heady.

"Hey, I'm only here to make sure you don't snort to death on those cotton buds." Kicks his denims across the room as if they are likely to crawl back and attack him otherwise. And he's far too conscious of the effect his naked skin has on a woman, the combination of smooth and rough, masculine and boyish.

"Sure, I get it."

She hates how she automatically looks down, cocoa brown boxers, how a girlish flutter of the eyelashes can't be helped. And she should be used to it by now. Ought not to fall for this act. _It's ridiculous_. She hurries to creep under the single cotton sheet, feeling naked and vulnerable like this now. Just the dress on, nothing underneath. _What the hell had she been thinking?_ She'd been prepared to sleep with him there, right on the beach. No inhibitions at all. But now, here, in the relative normalcy of the house. It ought to be different; she ought to have some kind of self-control.

"Yeah, so whatever other filthy things you had in mind little missy, you can just forget 'em…"

She just smiles at this, feeling safer with the familiar repartee. Smiles and pulls those disgusting pieces of cotton out from her nose, shielding herself with a hand. Placing them under a tissue on the bedside table. Soaked with blood, one finger under her nose to see if it has stopped. _Seems like it._

His grin wide and wicked. Perhaps enjoying how disgustingly pathetic she is.

"Scoot over!" he says and makes himself comfortable next to her. Grunting as he tries to loosen the tucked-in corners of the sheet. Slinking under smooth as an eel. _Bastard_. Him in his boxers, and all that skin. She rolls around quickly, turning her back on him and it's useless because he does what he wants. Exactly like he wants with her. Just brings her in close to him. Back against chest. _Oh god._ "Gonna' read you a goodnight story. Think the problem with you is, you read far too little good literature."

"So this is what you call _good_ literature?" Wiggles backwards a little. Mostly just to test him. And she feels him stirring, even now. _Figures._ But he doesn't let anything on.

"Sure is, Sugar. The very best."

Can't help herself. Melts against him like butter on a toast, wishing there were no thin layers of silk dresses or boxers between them. His right hand with the book resting on her hip, a clumsy, impractical one-handed flip through the pages while his other arm scoots in under her neck. Left hand landing on her breast as if this was by pure accident.

"So where were we…? Well Brigitte woke up completely nekkid… sensual dreams and all…" voice like butterscotch sauce, flowing over her. His palm moving lightly over her nipple, as much as the awkward position allows for. He's terrible. Bites her lip not to let out a sound.

_Let him think he has no effect on her whatsoever._

"Was it Fredo?" Poorly feigned interest, the tips of his fingers circling her breast ever so lightly. Infuriatingly soft.

"No, pay attention," he snaps crisply, as if it's not two in the morning and they're completely sloshed. As if they were in a civilized setting, and as if this were an entirely normal thing for them to do. "She left with Carlo, remember?"

He reads and explains to her the intricacies of the story. And some things just have to be demonstrated. At a particularly vigorous reenactment the book is dropped on the floor. When he reaches down to pick it up again, she snakes her hands down beneath the sheet. Mostly because she's a little cold. And also because she needs to hide. His voice alone, that intonation of his, giving her goose-bumps where there should be none.

"Hey, hey hey! Keep those hands where I can see them!" He flings the book across the room and she half hopes he'll hit something breakable. Pulls the sheet off her completely. Hand on her hip, peppery hot through the thin fabric.

She holds her breath. _This._ She knows this game. Knows where it's going and she can't say she doesn't want to see it through.

"Ain't gonna' let you take any liberties now. Know girls like you… just waiting to take advantage of a charitable man..."

"Your are that though…very charitable…"

"Well hell… if I ain't feeling a little charitable right now."

""No…no I don't think…" she protests but honestly. It's a very feeble protest, imuffled by his hands reaching up at level with her head, as if about to caress her face but diverted at the last moment.

"What!" Indignant smirk. "Just plumping your pillow. What did you think I was gonna' do Sugar?" He sniggers annoyingly, a little poke at her pillow.

"Shut up Sawyer."

"Goodnight to you too Honeybee," he murmurs scooching closer. Letting his fingers flow over her hips, down to the hem of her dress, slowly, carefully skimming, edging the skirt up over her thighs. She slaps a palm across his hand, stopping his advance upwards.

"Hey… buddy, " she says threateningly. She's still miserably drunk and, well; her whole face feels like a tank has rolled over it. Besides, across the living room lies Jack. In Miles bedroom, probably sleeping but still. Much as she wants to she can't do it. Can't let anything happen tonight.

"What? I ain't doing nothing…" he says innocently, sitting up hastily so that the entire bed shakes."'Sides I reckon, if you really didn't want my hand up your skirt, you'd be wearing some goddamn underwear."

"Christ," she says because, well, he's got a point.

"It's because of Doc, ain't it? Scared he'll hear us do the dirty ain't you Honey?" he sneers, managing to look both nervous and arrogant at the same time.

Suddenly afraid he'll up and leave. The lure of his taut stomach disappearing down into the chocolate of the boxers. An obvious bulge there. He can't be right, can't be sane if he's turned on by this mess. Her like road-kill there on the bed. _But he can't leave._

"No," she mumbles. "No that's not it."

He studies her mutely for a moment, lets his eyes dash from her feet to her face as if he could decipher her that way.

"Yeah Darling, that's _exactly_ what it is," he says nodding to himself, bracing his arms to rise from the bed. Her hand stretching forward, a light stroke across the fine curve of his biceps. His eyes tightening on her. Preparing for a fight, racking his brain to say something cutting. _Shit._ His baffling lack of self confidence. It always comes back to this. And she knows she is somewhat to blame.

"Fuck it girl… Is it… you're regretting it, ain't you? You and me?"

She shakes her head so vigorously her hair lashes against her own face. Her fingers following the outline of his arm all the way down to his hand and how her throat constricts as he clutches hold of it. His gaze on her, licking her skin, an unmistakable quiver in the region of her heart. He can't leave her here tonight. She won't allow it.

"You wanna'…?"

"Wanna' what now Sweetcakes?" he says warily as if she might suggest something outrageous. As if he's expecting some kind of perverted proposition from her.

"Could you sleep here,... I mean, with me?" Nerves vanquished, the relief of letting the words spill out.

"What about Jackass? Not scared he'll find out?" Still a little suspicious. Eyes hard on her. His grip around her hand, equally forceful. As if he'd like to put her though a lie-detector.

"No."

And that's all it takes. A little affirmation. _I want you. Come, come, come._

"Hell yeah." His smile like a flash of happiness at the pit of her stomach. Like a child, unadulterated delight. _Loves. Him. _And he wants to stay here. With her.

He tries to lie down next to her again, which proves hazardous enough, what with her injured face and their nervous jerky movements, trying to get close without getting too close. Hands placed somewhere safe, not up skirts or down in boxers. Sleep. Just sleep. Accidentally elbows him in the face, not hard but enough to have him cussing and swearing.

Finally finding a relative peace lying there next to one another. In a close embrace, a little awkward but affectionate. And tired, so damned tired.

"Shit, it's like falling in love with Mike Tyson," he mutters into her neck as he tucks down the skirt of her dress.

And she' wouldn't have found anything remarkable with that, because he says a lot of things he doesn't mean. Except he'd said 'falling _in love'_, in that grumpy voice.

_The one he uses to disguise what's real. _

They lie there silently. Her back against his chest yet another time, though this time, there is no need to push against his crotch. No need to test him.

_She knows._

And when she turns her head to check on him, his eyes are clinched shut, pretending to be asleep already. She loves that he doesn't complain about her keeping a nightlight on, doesn't complain at all. Just takes it all, exactly as it is.

She has to remind herself. It's not a choice, just a simple fact. _She can't stay. He's not for her. _She has to go after them, has to find them at any cost. He knows that and she knows that. This little boy, as much hers as he's Claire's. She can't stay here and do nothing. Impossible. Wants to beg him: _come, come. Come with me. But she has no right to ask him that. _She can't give him anything beyond simple physical pleasure and sporadic affection. Can't be that centre-point, the focus of his life._ Can't be what he needs._

She wishes she could._Oh how she wishes._

The room that seems to sway as she closes her eyes, his lips, the coarse friction of his chin against her neck. And she's almost inside a dream when she hears a hoarse:

"You know… it ain't all 'bout the sex right Freckles?"

_She must be hallucinating this. _

"What?..." Her eyelids sticking together, refusing to open up. She's so tired. She must be way more sloshed than she'd thought. She doesn't understand a single word of what he's saying. No that's not true. She understands the words, just not the sequence in which he strings them together. Not the meaning.

"You and me… it ain't just the sex… I… you know… Just thought, well... you ought to know."

When did he suddenly turn into this? The man who lets his mask fall off. Who strips himself of all his armors, all his protective barriers and throws himself in front of her. It's frightening, because he's so much stronger than her. This. This fearlessness he has, and she doesn't. Squeezes out a dull _'yeah'_ for lack of a better response.

"Sorry… sorry 'bout your… the kid… The baby I mean…"

"Okay…" she whispers because anything beyond that, she can't bear, can't muster up. She'd carried it alone for so long. Lost it there while waiting for her hearing. Alone, truly alone. The only person in the world who'd thought it was a loss worth crying over.

Hates that he knows, but at the same time. _His sorry… _Restoring a little dignity to that tiny unwanted life, as if it was something, meant something at all. Because it did to her.

"No it wadn't okay… None of it…" he says and his hand smoothes her forehead, like you'd hold a sick person. _What do you know? _Sawyer. _Sensitive man._ Who'd have thought? Clumsy and awkward and not at all used to this. His heavy palm across her brow and she feel strangely protected. Doesn't know when she falls asleep. Lulled by his rhythmical breathing beside her. Her love for him, she tucks it away. Like a little grain of truth, deep inside. _Precious._

Maybe, maybe one day, she'll be able to tell him.

Not now. _But maybe one day. _

* * *

He wakes up way too early.

Nothing new with that. But he wakes up in her bed. Even with Jackass in the same house. He's still the one she'd asked for. She'd invited him to stay. _Him._ Incomprehensible as it is.

Somehow they've moved apart during the night. Probably her leaving him, the way she lies in her usual bent shape, curled up hard, her back towards him.

She's snoring. Just a bit, but enough to make it impossible to fall back to sleep again. No that's a lie. He could sleep in spite of the snoring. It's the fucked-up dress. The dress and her. He tries hard not to look at her there. The way the dress has slid up a bit, like an accordion around her waist. So high up, her butt is almost visible beneath the cream fabric, or at least the lower half moons. The angle, her back arched, knees drawn up just enough to give him a heart-stopping view of what's in between. The darkness, a shadow between her buttocks summoning his hand. _Come explore._ That part of her. The only part that is really all woman. _Shit, shit, shit_. Lies there engorged and horny, feeling slightly foolish. She isn't even conscious. It's not like all this delightful sweetness is on display for his benefit. And he might be a sleazebag but he ain't one to take advantage of cataleptic girls inadvertently flashing themselves.

_She's asleep_, he reminds himself. Totally gone, completely out for counts. Might even be quite drunk still.

Hair in a web across her face, making him want to swipe it away. Her blossoming lips visible underneath, and though he can't imagine she'll have a great morning breath, it takes all he's got to resist the urge to swoop in for a good morning kiss. Maybe more.

Takes a commendable amount of self-control not to allow his fingers to follow that little succulent curve, round it and disappear underneath, in between. Forward. Wants to wake her up like that. Imagines entering her from behind, leaving his hands free to slide around her front, trawl down from her bellybutton to her center. She'd be hot and moist and heartbreakingly immodest. In his dream. Might even moan load enough to bother Jack. _Ha._ Best dream ever.

But that's just what it is.

Just a dream. The reality, shit, what with her fight…the spontaneous attack on Dewi._ Crazy, crazy girl._ Something flashing by when he thinks of it. Something he might have seen last night, might have imagined. Not sure. Something he's got to take care of. Now. It won't do to lie here and indulge in impossible sexual fantasies. Needs to talk to someone. Gets up. Throws the single sheet over her lower body to stop his mind from playing tricks on him. Stop the longing.

He sneaks Kate's phone out of her purse, brings it out on the porch. Henry agrees to meet for breakfast at a nearby café'. He buys a pair of cheap rubber sandals at one of the little stands off the beach path. Must get some proper shoes somewhere, and damn soon. Feels like a goddamn penguin sliding around in those stupid plastic boats.

They order coffee, he can't stomach anything else. Faint feeling of nausea. Shouldn't have drunk that much, shouldn't have let her either. He could have had her last night. He'd fumbled it all up or perhaps she had. Wasn't really the right setting for a passionate night of carnal pleasures. Not with her face like an abstract painting, probably hurting like a bitch even though she'd never let it on.

But he feels the time slipping away. The chance, to make her fall in love with him, slipping away by the second. That's how pathetic he is. _Sex._ What he uses to make her fall for him. The only thing he really has to offer, what he knows.

_Hell,_ he'd go down on her all day long if he thought that'd convince her to stay. But even that ain't working at all. Instead of her falling for him, he's the one who's turned into a complete sentimental sap. Case in evidence: the sex, the other morning. Her in his arms. It had done nothing to still the hunger for her, had just etched the need even deeper. He's such a fucking cliché._ Can't loose her now._

She won't stay. _He has to make her stay. _Has to.

Shakes the thoughts loose. Henry watching him expectantly above the rim of his coffee cup. Looking greasy and sleazy as usual. But nothing wrong with those sharp peering eyes. The intelligence palpable across the little table. No time to waste. Henry with a little impatient dangle of the foot.

"So what's up boss?"

"You ain't calling me that," he snarls, immediately thinking of Miles and missing him with an intensity that makes him choke. It's not that he's got many friends. Hardly any at all in fact, except a few lady acquaintances he hooks up with every now and then for fun and a couple of random business associates. And the people from the island. That's _**it**_. Not a big fucking pool to pick and choose from.

"Sorry, I guess, since Miles calls you that and…"

"Yeah well, you _won't_. So,… I might have spotted someone last night…"

"What? Who? Where?" Henry stammers, and he's so incredibly uncool it makes Sawyer relax.

"Hey watch it with the twenty questions per second, my head is about to explode. Down in Seminyak near the beach last night. We ran into Dewi and, well ain't sure but I think I saw Danan in the crowd there too."

"Oh. Okay. So what do you want from me?"

"Well this island ain't that big. Want you to track him down pal, what else?"

"And then what? What do you want with him?"

Sips his coffee while watching Hurley walk slowly towards them. Thinking distractedly that the big guy must've really lost some considerable weight. He's looking positively radiant. Or maybe he just doesn't stay up boozing all night.

"Oh hell, I just miss the sly sonofabitch," he mumbles into his cup. Not sure himself. _Kill him. Kill him. _His pulse like a freight train. _Make him pay._

Henry gets up the moment Hurley pulls out a chair to join them.

"Gotta' go gentlemen, will be in contact if I learn something new and useful," he says and breezes off in a flutter of wrinkled, un-ironed clothes.

"What's his problem?" Hurley looks a bit hurt by the swift departure.

"No idea. So how's the plotting an' planning for the great expedition?"

"Yeah well, you know, we're just kicking off…." Hurley pretends to read the menu. "So you sure you're not coming, could need you… you know… "

"Yep, I'm sure."

Hurley orders from a surprisingly surly teenager. The trainee tag hanging in a slapdash fashion off his batik shirt. Thick black hair sprouting above the typical Balinese headdress.

"Dude, I don't think there is a chance Kate will let us leave without her. "

"You gonna' make her," he says as if Hurley owes him shit.

"But you know,… with Claire and Aaron and everything. I don't think she will let that go… not without a fight. She lives for that kid Sawyer."

"Yeah I fucking know that," he says sharply. "She _ain't _going Hurley."

Hurley shrugs and folds and unfolds his damn napkin. It annoys Sawyer that he doesn't look him in the eyes.

"Dude…they have a history… Don't you think you ought to bow out? You could stay at the Emporium with us… let them figure things out. Give them some space, a chance to…" docile and sweet, twisting the napkin around now. Still not looking at him.

_Hep. _So that's how it is. It's_ stand-up-for-Jackass-day._

"A chance to _**what **_buddy? To fuck each other up even more?" _No,_ he thinks, _no way. That asshole had his chance with her_. Had three fucking years of chances and he'd screwed it up. Jack had blown it. She's fair game now.

And he's waited so long for her. Had waited and hoped and searched that damned island with a loupe every fucking day for three fucking years. Those stupid grids, tirelessly nagged Miles and Jin into fine-combing every nook and cranny of that hellhole.

"Dude you were with Juliet, she was with him all that time… I know you guys had something going way back then but come on… that's a really long time ago. What's in it for you now? Some kind of revenge thing?"

_Juliet. _Well, he'd never had the heart to tell her that he had still been hoping. Though she must have known about the searches. Must have understood that he wasn't only hoping for some kind of rescue mission from Locke. Knowing her, smart girl as she is, she must have known all too well. _His obsession._

How they'd fallen apart as soon as Kate had set foot on the island.

"Revenge? I don't know what the hell you've been smoking Hurley… Ain't any of your business anyhows?" he grumbles. "And what's fucking _**in it**_ for me! I'm the fucking idiot who's in love with her alright?"

Instantly regretting his lack of self-control. Pretends to ogle some tourist girls having breakfast at another table dressed in bikini tops and colorful sarongs. Not biggie. Sitting here spewing his feelings out all over the breakfast table. And to Hurley nonetheless. Great fucking start of the day.

Hurley doesn't answer. Not much to say to that. Looks up to see the sullen teen-waiter serve him his toast and coffee. Flies immediately drawn to the sweetness of orange marmalade.

"Look, I'm gonna' need someone to look after the property while I'm gone, see over the business and make sure everything rolls on. I mean, if you're not coming anyway? Mom will come too and pitch in but, yeah it'd be great if you would…"

"Sure buddy. Sure I can boss around your cute little secretary and look after your pool bar. Sure."

Hurley's smile tells him, he's not worried about that at all. he folds his hands over his stomach and leans back in his chair. Flicking those weird Jesus-curls back.

"Excellent. I knew I could rely on you dude! Besides my mom will keep you on the straight and narrow. She's good at that."

Relieved to be out of the swampy terrain he, Kate and Jackass inhabit. He can smile again, a real smile.

"I bet she is, buddy-boy. Not scared I'll corrupt her for you? Always had a certain weakness for Latinas."

"No dude, not really worried at all. Knowing my Mama, she'll have turned you into a good little Catholic boy in no time."

Wants to kiss Hugo for this. The benefactor and protector of them all, circus freaks and misfits alike.

_None of them deserving of his friendship._

* * *

Empty. Not his skin against her back. The first thing she is aware of as she wakes up. The sun is hot through the window, a large expanse covering the bed. He's not there and as much as she doesn't want to think of it, the disappointment is ridiculous.

It ought not to feel like this. She has woken up many mornings without him. She should be used to it.

_But he didn't stay_.

Humiliating to wake up like this and she has a newfound compassion for him. This is what she'd done to him. There is a heavy pressure across her forehead, a headache not quite there yet but gaining on her by the second. She hoists herself out of bed and wants to cry for the pain across her nose and sinuses.

A little woozy still. Just on the verge of slamming into one hell of a hang-over. Embarrassed by the fact that she didn't even make it out of her torn and bloodied dress last night. She pulls it over her head and tosses it on the floor. She won't ever be able to use it again. Doesn't matter, wasn't really her style anyway. Takes the first thing she can find. A meek willow green dress, small swirly patterns in a slightly darker green. One of those cheap cotton shifts that she favors nowadays, thin straps. Steps into a pair of clean underwear. _What the hell had she been thinking? _Scrapes her hair back, fastening it with a normal rubber band.

That's when her naked foot touches something on the floor. His t-shirt. Soft and washed-out bluish grey cotton. And it's like finding a piece of him there. She picks it up and can't resist bringing it up to her face. Closing her eyes, she buries her nose in it. Draws in his smell. Spicy, warm and_ his_.

_How a fragrance can fill you up completely._

_God._ How she wishes it could have been simpler, easier between them. How she wishes she'd made different choices all along the way. _Jack_. How she'd bent over backwards to be good enough for him. Never really getting there. She'd been so blind, so stupid. Hadn't realized Sawyer's worth until it was far too late. _Juliet had_. And this, Kate realizes, is what makes her envy the woman more than anything. She must have had a brain on her and all her preconceptions on hold. She had spotted it in him, embraced it and she had managed to make that connection with him.

_He._

This man. Behind the self-loading and the sharp barbs keeping people at bay; something valuable, something rare. A gem hidden in grime and dirt. How can she leave him behind now? _How can she ask him to come?_

She has no right to him. None what so ever.

* * *

He passes an ambulating vendor, an old fellow carrying some kind of sweet cakes in two enormous baskets hooked on a pole across his shoulders.

On an impulse he stops the old man and sticks a 10.000,- Rupiah bill in his hand. He gets a little brown paper-wrap filled with goodies for that. It smells vanilla and syrup and makes him think of her for some reason. Something gripping him, and it's freaky and scary. Something tame and domestic. Wants to make her some thick black coffee. Wants to sit with her on the porch, close, close in the sultry heat out there, dipping sweet-cakes in their mugs. Doesn't know what the hell is up with him. The freakin' daydreaming taking over completely. Can already see how the syrup will dribble down her chin, how he'll kiss it away. The salty taste of her mixing with the sweetness.

Can almost smell the happiness, right behind the corner. _Him and her._ He ends up almost running home, jogging down the beach path, making people swerve off onto the sand around it. Can't stop.

He rushes through the house. Feels silly and breathless and inexplicably in a hurry to see her. Imagining how he'll find her there. Will hitch her up, like in some soppy old movie. He'll twirl her around and she'll drape her legs around him for support. Will kiss him, full on, swollen kissable lips and sweet tongue against his. He'll stumble into the bedroom with her in his arms and a heart so full of her there is no space for fear.

_No place for doubts. _

The coffee could wait, the cakes too. Or maybe they'll have them later, after they make love, slow and excruciatingly tender love, maybe they'll eat in bed. Together. Crumbs and powdery sugar sticking on naked slick skin.

_Shit. He's an idiot_. It's all flowers and twitter of little sparrows. How the hell an old cynic like him can turn into this, how he could have fallen so hard, it's beyond comprehension.

_

* * *

_

_Hoped you enjoyed it. Reviews, good and bad are loved and cherished._


	26. Another tumble

_Faster this time huh? Well, already had this written and the last chapter was originally part of this but it grew so insanely long I had to cut it (only to write a lot more again later)._

_Thanks so much to those still reading this story! Judith, Jessi, Angela, Luci, Tia,Scotty (don't feel bad, I'm really grateful for the honesty and if something doesn't come across the way I had intended then it can only be the writing that is lacking...not the reader : ) so please keep doing what you do), Yema (I really hope you'll like this chapter... nervous now...), Tsoi, Dela... and all those that read but maybe don't feel like commenting...thanks anyway. _

_Apologies if Jack gets a less than favorable portrayal in this fic but I just need him to be a bit of an antagonist for the story's sake._

_And this chapter is dedicated to K. To a girl I don't know but who I almost was. The last part, the very last part of this chapter is for you. Because there is beauty in a jaded brokenness too. And even if no one can see it right now, maybe someday, someone will._

...

_Rating: M for language and some sexual references. _

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it is._

* * *

**Another stumble**

**

* * *

**

The sun beating down on her back. Can feel how the shoulder straps are etched white into her skin while the rest is probably turning a nice lobster red.

But she's got to get the stains out. _Has to._

Scrubs it fervently against the washboard. Tears inexplicably burning beneath the eyelids. She's in such a state. What they have. It's so flimsy, so unreliable. They haven't even known each other for all that long. Not really. Have never really been together, never managed anything beyond the bickering and the screwing around. She can't ask this of him. _Please come, throw your life away._ For a woman he hardly knows, a woman who can't even tell him how she feels_. _

Though she suspects, it probably wouldn't take more than that.

_Just her asking_, saying the words.

Only she can't. She know she isn't worth that kind of sacrifice. She sure as hell hasn't got the right to ask him to go back to that place. Hasn't got the right to ask him for anything.

She is startled out of her self-pity by Jack. Without warning, he's there, standing at the top of the steps in the little backyard. Making her think of _him_, on that exact spot not long ago at all. Sitting there teasing, goading trying to make her squirm.

"So, that's some nose you got there…" Jack says, peering at her face. His clothes impeccable. As always. A dark-blue tennis shirt, jeans, wearing some sort of sneakers that somehow strikes her as too young for him. Like he's trying too hard.

She tries to resist covering her swollen potato-lump with her hand but finds it impossible, his critical, evaluating eyes on her. Always wanting to be someone she's not when she's with him.

"Yeah I guess. It was clumsy, I don't know how I could just slide off the chair like that," she mumbles, returning to scour the gray shirt harder against the washing-board. Not caring that her knuckles are already raw and painful.

Is aware of him settling down on the bottom step. And she wants to ask him to leave._ Go away. _Can't handle him right now. Can handle nothing beyond concentrating on getting the stains out of Sawyer's shirt. Her blood.

"Cut it out Kate. I know you didn't fall down."

_Yeah well, don't ask then, _she thinks. Fastens her eyes on her own hands instead of him. Wrinkled and red from being submerged in the scorching hot water. She'd brought it to a boil before pouring it into the pail, a twisted sort of self-punishment. For what exactly, she doesn't know. Sweat trickling down her back, across her front. Feeling like a roasted pig in the sweltering heat, her head throbbing with every movement. Her knees, the band-aids placed so carefully by Sawyer last night, dirty and soaked through.

"Is _he_ somewhat to blame?" Can't believe he'd go there and it angers her. Jack's fault that his comfortable little life had come to an end. Jack's fault that he's back here rootless, drifting, trying to find something to hold onto.

"No. Of course not! He'd never hurt me." And she knows the moment she says it that this is the undiluted truth. He'd never hurt her, not willingly. Not if he could help it.

And still he does. _Over and over again._

Jack cocking his head, that skeptical expression. He doesn't believe a word of it. Or if he does, he'll put it through elaborate mental examinations before letting anything she says pass for the truth. He's never quite trusted her, and perhaps with good reason.

"Why did you tell him Jack?" her lips moving, her vocal chords forming the sounds against her will. Doesn't want to ask, still she does. "I asked you not to. You promised."

Hates how meek she sounds. How much like a victim.

"Tell him what Kate?" he says. But he knows. Knows exactly what she's talking about. The only thing she'd ever asked him, the only promise she's ever extracted from him. And he couldnt' even do that.

His arms resting on his knees. Focusing on her, his eyes intelligent and alert as always. Makes her feel like he's something priceless, fought over and finally bought from Sotheby's only to turn out to be a fake, a clever forgery. But then again, who is she to talk? If he's Sotheby's, the kind that could be mistaken for the real thing, she is the cheap stuff you chuck on the counter of a gas-station, just for the heck of it. A bag of crisps. Can't understand why he'd ever wanted her in the first place. Must have hoped she would have become someone else with him. Must have hoped he could turn her into something better, someone worthy.

"The, you know…after we came back…?" Looks at her own arms disappearing down into the soapy water. She's used far too much detergent. The shirt will be itchy, impossible to rinse. So desperate to wash away the spots.

"What? What do you want to know Kate?" Jack's voice, calm and controlled.

_He's_ the one not to be trusted, a new truth to be taken in and processed.

He'd ratted her out, put her private pain on display and he must have known exactly what he was doing. Must have done it on purpose. Wittingly hurting both Sawyer and her at the same time, two birds with one stone. Still, she can't for the life of her muster up the righteous fury his betrayal deserves. And it's not only that the shame is too great. How her body can't even do that, what it was made for. _It's not that._

Somehow, the shame is mixed with a sense of liberation. _Sawyer knows now_. She'll never have to tell him. And if Jack had thought he might have driven a wedge in between them, he'd been wrong. How by exposing her, he hadn't broken them apart at all. Sawyer's uncomfortable little_ 'sorry' _last night_. _Knowing what it must have cost him to form those two syllables. A 'sorry' whispered against her neck, naked and undisguised. Sharing her guilt a little, shouldering a tiny part of her failure. _He knows now._

"Why did you…?"

"He asked," Jack says simply, a cruel streak about him. "You know, I looked her up… His girlfriend. Cassidy. You know she had his baby?"

"Yes. I know all about that Jack." How the word baby, such a sweet innocent word can sting so ruthlessly. Like acid filling up the cavity where her heart is supposed to be.

_Still, after all of this time._

She makes herself lift her eyes from the pail, sits up on her heels to look him straight in the eyes. _Hazel._ She'd thought she'd seen love in those eyes once. Now all she sees is an inexplicably frail man. Doesn't understand where all of that baggage comes from.

"How can you be with someone like that? He just screwed her over and left her to fend for herself…"

And this is true. He had. But Jack is not in a position to judge. Feeling the injustice of it chafing at her. Wants to strike out. Her father's daughter. She swallows the impulse to leap on him, biting her teeth together. _Hard._

"Why did you look her up? To find proof that you're a better man than he is?"

"He asked me," he says again. A swift feeling of weightlessness, of loosing her footing. Nothing makes sense. Sawyer asking him or anyone to do anything for him. It doesn't jive. But he'd asked her… that first time. He'd whispered it in her ear like a secret, as if _she_, and only she, could be trusted.

"He _**asked**_ you? Funny what good buddies you two turned out to be." She wipes her hair back from her forehead with a raw, wet hand. How violence is never far from her. The wanting to hurt him.

Jack lets this slide by. Gives her a look that says he's above all that. That superior look that she'd mistaken for dignity.

"He'll hurt you. Sooner or later he will," he says. Voice dark and ominous. Bizarre, outlandish conversation. "He uses people Kate. You know that. He used you back on the island."

She swallows hard, fixes her eyes on the bucket of water in front of her. Doesn't want to hear this. Wanting childishly to scream back at Jack; _it isn't true!_ It isn't true.

"He was with Juliet for all that time... he'd moved on. What do you think you are to him?"

She doesn't answer this either. What is there to say? She knows her inadequacies well. She knows she is a poor replacement for Juliet. Hating Jack for bringing her fears to the surface.

And where is he? Where the hell did he go?

Should be here with her. Here. _Now._

* * *

He hears the water pouring in the backyard as he walks towards the back of the house. And there she is, there below the steps, crouching and scrubbing away furiously at his shirt. He waves the little package in the air as he reaches the doorway and is about to shout something. Just as his lips part to call her name - he notices Jack sitting on the bottom step, watching her. Catches his last words, that dry voice, screaming of logic.

'_What do you think you are to him?'_

He screeches to a halt. _Fuck him_, he thinks. Understands immediately whom he's referring to. No clarifications needed. Wants to grab him by his starched collar and beat him to mush for saying it. No doubt he's talking about _him_ and _her_. What the hell does he know anyway? She's everything. _Everything._

She says nothing. Wants to shout; _don't listen to him!_

"He's not going back to the island for you. That ought to tell you everything you need to know…"

He has to tear himself away from his spot behind the door-frame. The instincts, those male hormones telling him to take the two steps through the door and bludgeon the other man to death with his bare fists.

_Mine._

He notices that he's shaking._ Fuck._ Forces himself to leave them there. Sits down in the living room pretending to read until Jack slinks by, head held low as if he's feeling guilty about something. _And he knows she's alone out there_.

Jack acknowledges him with a swift nod as he passes him. Nothing else. _Asswipe. _Already behaving as if he has more right than Sawyer to be there.

_And maybe he has._

* * *

He purposely takes Jack's spot on the bottom step. Imagines it still warm from Jack's arrogant ass. The possessiveness, he knows it's preposterous to say the least. can't help it.

_Mine._

Forces himself to strike a light tone, even though what he's feeling is anything but.

"Well… ain't you just deliciously domesticated Sweet Pea?" Places the little paper wrap on the steps next to him. His heart clenched tight as he notices what it is she's washing. _His stupid shirt._ It's just a cheap old t-shirt. Not worth the effort. Wants to tell her to throw it away, not to bother. A bit of blood. Well, _hell_, he's seen worse.

"Yeah, you'd know everything about that wouldn't you?" A cheap dig, a sharp jab at him for Juliet, and he can't say he blames her for it. She looks at him briefly, only to bend her head down again over the big pail, filled to the brim with sudsy water. Her hair in a pony tail like that, making her look young. Far too young. She's sweaty, her skin glossy all over and the dress is soaking wet from waist down. There is something about her and water. How she looks just perfect like that. Grubby and drenched.

"You pissed baby?" He takes his cigarettes out. Preparing to sit there for a while, to enjoy the view a little. How her breasts bob under the light green fabric as she brutally rubs that ugly shirt against the old washboard. The lean muscles of her arms flexing in the sunlight.

"You left." she sniffs and draws a wet hand under her nose. She isn't crying. Just angry as far as he can tell. Briskly dunks the shirt into another bucket filled with clear water, little drops of it splashing her face and her chest.

"Hey, ain't so great when the shoe's on the other foot is it? Besides, had some business to attend to." It's easy to be that Sawyer. _The arrogant ass_. So much easier than the romantic sucker he's become.

"Yep, sure! Business." It might be wrong but it thrills him that she's upset, puts him in strangely high spirits. Her cheeks a healthy cherry red, hair fizzy and crazy around her face. Sweaty strands of it sticking to her forehead.

"So where's Romeo boy off to?" The taut muscles in her arms as she tips the bucket sideways, letting the foamy water flow down into the drain. Staring at it as if fascinated by the slow stream across the old cracked tiles, around and under her bare feet.

"Don't know… said he's planning to change some money, get some beach clothes." Chin up, that warrior princess poise of hers.

"Hey, your nose ain't looking half bad today. More koala than Mike Tyson as a matter of fact…. And whadda'ya say, no shiner after all!" It's true. She looks sort of funny, but she's a looker no matter what.

"Chalk it up to experience," she mutters.

"That stupid shirt…. just leave it be Freckles. You ain't got to do that."

"Yeah I do." Glares at him venomously.

She wrings the water out of the sodden fabric, clenching her teeth like an angry little tiger as she does. And he thinks…well, there might still be a slim chance to make that daydream come true. The mercurial nature of this zappy energy between them. Able to change from storm to sunshine in an instant.

"Hey Buttercup, how 'bout I fix us some coffee? I've got sweetmeats…" Dangles the brown paper wrap between thumb and index finger. Doesn't know why his heart beats like crazy when he says it. Feels trite and mushy but then again, that banal idea is beckoning. The one where they sit shoulder-to-shoulder, flirting, sipping coffee. Happy. Simple and uncomplicated.

"Is this some kind of joke James?" She stands up, staggering a bit, wiping her palms down the side of her dress, though there doesn't seem to be a spot left to dry them on. Her face's soft curves hardened and suspicious.

"Nah… I mean, if you want some, seeing as how I'm making a pot anyhows. And you've been doing my laundry all day…"

He heaves himself up, looks over at her just at the right moment to catch a terse little nod.

"It's just one shirt Sawyer. Hardly all of your laundry." Crabby little curl of her lips. And he wants to kiss her, wants to stumble down the steps and kiss her doubts away.

_Take me._

Her washing for him. The care and physical exertion spent on _his _shirt. Well, there is just something about it.

Reminds him of those early days. A haircut on a beach a long time ago. Goofing around, her scent in his nostril as she bent over him with the scissor. The unfamiliar sensation of being cared for. Not knowing exactly what it was, what they were. Tender affection wrapped in a zesty playfulness, lust and love and something else, all intermingled, indistinguishable.

She'd been his. Already back then. Only he hadn't known it yet.

* * *

He switches on the gas and throws the pot on the fire. And there is Jack in the doorway. Wants something of course. Wants to ask something but doesn't know how to go about it. _Are you man or mouse Doc?. _The words from the backyard echoing in his mind. _Asshole. _He's a fucking rat. That's what he is.

And she had chosen him. That sonofabitch that isn't worthy enough to be in the same room as her. Acting all high and mighty, as if he's a snap above them all. He's got _**nothing**_ on her.

Lives a cushioned life. Rich kid, daddy was a doctor too._ That much he knows._ What the fuck he's got to drink about, Sawyer can't for the life of him imagine. He's never had to hear his mommy plead for her fucking life, never seen his daddy's brains splatter on the floor of his boyhood room. He's never had to sleep in a bed belonging to someone else, never had to walk through the doorway of the fifth suburban home in a year. Going from door to door, hat in hand, being shown yet another room. Yet another room he knew didn't belong to him, wouldn't be his for long. Bussed around, passed on. Unwanted. Getting bigger and bulkier and more impossible to love for every pitiful birthday he passed. His uncle had kept him as long as he could, and after that it had been one long joyride courtesy of Social Services. One foster home after another. And though he knows nothing of Kate's childhood, he knows she must carry her own demons. Jack. Fuck knows, why she'd chosen him? _'I had her and I lost her.'_ Weak, wimpy prick, wallowing in his luxury problems. No, he's got nothing on her.

And the thought of that last fight, before Juliet… Before the bomb went off. He suddenly wants a rematch. No, he doesn't want to fight. But he wants Jack to hit him. Wants Jack to get down in the swampy quagmire with him.

"Making coffee? Can I do something?" Jack asks politely like the _'good'_ guy he is. Damn him. _Yes, you can get the fuck out of my way,_ he thinks. But really, he just wants him away from her. Far away.

She'd gotten _engaged _to this arrogant prick. What had she been thinking? And how the hell could he ever have a chance with her if this is her fucking benchmark? Cultured doctor. A good, decent guy. _Hates him._ It's not reasonable, he knows that. But he doesn't give a fuck. There is a paper-thin layer of civility stopping him from taking another chokehold on the guy. _Get the fuck out of here._

"Nope, I've got it Doc. As mind-boggling as it might be, this old dog makes a pretty decent cup of Joe. Want some?"

The sheer astonishment on Jack's face, as if Sawyer being able to handle the gastronomic intricacies of preparing a cup of coffee is truly far and beyond his wildest expectations. Or maybe it's the unexpected offer that catches him off guard.

_Take the high road, _he reminds himself. _You don't want to go there._

But he does,_ oh hell yeah_ , he does.

"Yeah, sure... Thanks. Hey, what really happened last night?" _Oh and here it comes. _"I mean, what happened with her?"

Jack makes a vague gesture towards his own nose. And this he finds, is what lights the ignition, solidifies the cruel impulse. The irresistable urge to get under the good doctor's skin.

"What always happens Jack," he says dismissively and reaches for the coffee filter. "Ended the way it always does with her."

_Fuck the high road. _He's taking this into the damn bog. Slimy green jealousy fuelling him on. Knowing Jack well enough to be certain. He will dig his teeth into this.

"And what way is that?..." Wary now, the poor bastard. Walking right into Sawyers crudely erected trap.

His own eyes on the tin with ground coffee beans and the little scoop for measuring. Twisting open the lid, the aroma of roasted coffee filling the air. Pretending to grin to himself. _Ha, he's got this clinched._

"It ended right where it ought to Doc, with my tongue in her treasure cove."

And he's not one to kiss and tell, not normally. _Or hell_, maybe that's exactly the kind of dickhead he is. Well, at any rate, he is with her. And he can say it, _because it ain't even remotely true. _

What he really wants to say; _back off. She's mine._

"Wha…what did you just say?" The indignation painted all across Jack's smug mug. _Priceless._ Wants to make the bastard cry_. _And he sure as hell isn't holding back. The vileness comes natural to him.

"Her honey pot… _fuck_, whatever you wanna' call it..." He shrugs and smirks and he can see how Jack's blood starts on a slow boil. The other man's eye's dark as coal, a spark of hatred that he welcomes.

"She'll realize it sooner or later what a complete Jerk you are."

_Come on Jacky-boy,_ he thinks. _Step up! Be a man. Hit. Me._

"Maybe," he says glibly at this, pushing on. _Almost there now._ " I might be a jerk, but I reckon I'm the jerk she wants between her legs…. So… who's the pathetic bastard now?"

"She doesn't know what she wants James. This is only a phase and she'll wake up soon enough and realize what a big mistake you were." Jack's voice shaking now, barely contained anger.

And he can't say Jack doesn't hit home with this. Fuck yeah, he does. The words bore into him like sharp metal shards. But he'd _**never**_ let it on. Never in front of Jack. Turns slowly to face the other man. Uses the kind of dimpled conceited smile that women find irresistible and men hate. Well, _most men_. Jack sure seems to.

"Oh yeah, sounds like you're speaking from experience Doc." Scratches his chin. Pretending to think, peering through his hair. "Reckon, she might've still been yours had you gone down on her once in a while… Or ain't you man enough to keep your girl happy Doc?

_Oh and it feels so good to stoop this low._

So good, he doesn't see it coming.

Jack's first punch. His fist, as if attached to a spring. His knuckles colliding with Sawyer's jaw. Hard but not like he means it_. Ha, there's some truth to it then_, he has time to think before Jack's second punch hits him across the right temple, knocking his head onto the edge of the cupboard. Momentarily pitch black and he feels a third blow over his mouth, the wet sound of a lip splitting and a light splatter of blood. Spraying like mist.

That's when he comes around and vaults himself over Jack.

"You hit like a girl Doc," he grunts, throwing his entire weight on the man. Struggles to get a good one in. Jack is sirprisingly alert and agile, dodges him easily. It's all a haze of crunching fists and knuckles and Kate's voice, muffled by the fight.

"Stop it! Stop! What are you doing!"

When her voice comes nearer, in between them, he doesn't dare to strike out anymore, scared he'll hurt her and Jack seems to react the same way. Both letting arms fall, backing off. Thinks for a moment that he's blown it. She'll send him packing, she'll patch it up with Doc and that'll be it. Disoriented and foggy, he doesn't quite follow the rest. How somehow she ejects Jack out of the kitchen.

"Go Jack. Go."

A sweet soft voice, like someone about to break apart.

And to hell with it all. He ain't deserving of her - he knows it. Doesn't deserve how she reaches up, small girly hands, warm on his cheek.

_Loves. Her._

_He's a jerk. _Jack is right. He sure as hell doesn't deserve her. How she doesn't ask if he started it, doesn't run after Jack in a huff. Her warm palms across his ugly punched up mug. How she frigging blows air on his temple as if that will help at all. It's like being drunk. Wants to kiss her and just as he leans down to carry through, she lets go. Pulls back and draws away. _As always._ He wonders if she knows how damn miserable she has the power to make him. Wonders if she knows how fucking hard he's fallen for her.

They've had sex. No. They'd made love only yesterday morning. Still, there is nothing bridging this fear between them. They end up leaning against the counter, side by side. He pushes one of the cups he'd prepared towards her. Carelessly, as if it couldn't matter less to him.

"It might have grown a bit cold… was interrupted…"

"It's fine. Thank you."

His skin hot as she accidentally touches his fingers while taking the mug. Quick as a wink she pulls back. Waits for him to take his hand away before she picks the coffee up.

He sidles up to her there by the kitchen counter, closer, so that her shoulder touches his upper arm. Needs some kind of physical contact. Unbearable to be separated. He wipes his lip on the back of his hand, a wide smear of crimson red on his skin as he looks down. Nose feeling suspiciously drippy too. Shit. They are just the same, him and her. Just the same damn mess. He'd poked and prodded that man knowing damn well he'd end up getting a fist in his face. That had been the whole purpose of it. _And for what?_ He has no idea. Maybe to bring the other man down in the dirt again, to equalize the situation, level out the playing field again. His own brutish attack, the chokehold the other day in fresh memory.

They drink in silence, his split lip painful against the warmth of the cup and he can't help blurting it out.

"Stay. Don't go…" Talking to the wall in front of them. Can't look at her. He can't believe how corny he sounds, voice clichéd and hoarse. Adrenaline still pulsating through his veins. Would he stay with someone as needy as himself? _Probably not_. He'd most likely run screaming in the opposite direction. No wonder she is straining against him, pulling away. Fighting him off.

"I have to go," she says and when he swings his face sideways so that he can look at her, she ducks slightly as if she's expecting him to hit her. It hurts. _Fucking hurts._

"The hell you do Freckles. – It's _his_ goddamn sister after all... He's the one got us into this crap in the first place. Why don't you let him go instead?"

_She belongs here. With him._

"Doesn't change anything. I still have to go back…"her hair falls so thickly around her face, he can only make out the tip of her nose in profile like this. Wants to shout, _look at me! _He knows she feels something. It can't all be lust. Can't just be about sex. He'd felt it. Yesterday morning. He'd felt it. He'd been almost sure.

"That ain't an answer. You're leaving with _him_."

Round and round again. And he's shaky and feeling too old for this crap. _For her._ She puts her mug down, still almost full. So much for drinking coffee and making out and feeding each other sweets. Looks up at him. Dark circles under her eyes, nose red like a little Disney rain-deer. But fucking gorgeous, even now. Even like this.

"It's the only one I can give you. And I am not leaving _with_ him. You're such a dickhead sometimes. Do you ever know when to shut up Sawyer?"

Freakishly calm and dignified, slipping right by him.

"Does it matter Kate?" he snipes.

"Sorry James, can't do this…"

She turns in the doorway, looks at him over her shoulder.

"I'm afraid… I don't know how… I mean… You and me, we're just…."

"We're just _what _Kate!"

"How long do you think this would last? You and me...?" Green eyes, like olive orchards. The damage worse, much worse than Jack's fists. The pain of hearing out loud what they both suspect but what he doesn't want to think of. Maybe she's right. Maybe she really is beyond all that. They still fumble and stumble around like brainless one-celled creatures. Impossible to connect.

Truth be told, even he has his doubts. So many things have happened. So many things have been said and done and still, when faced with her, he finds the most awful things spewing out of his mouth. They seem to inevitably bring out the very worst in each other, spur one another on to uglier and uglier depths. _We could, we could, _he wants to whisper but instead he lets his emotions drag him down deeper. Just as he knew he would.

"You were willing to play house with him." And the injustice of this rips at him. Like sharp nails shredding him from within. She had. Somehow she'd given Jack a chance. Had invited him in, just like that. Had worn his fucking ring on her finger to boot. Bet it was a flashy sonofabitch too. _Nothing too good for her…_

She doesn't say anything for the longest time, just regards him silently. Eyes like metal now, blank and unyielding over a bare shoulder. He's gone too far again. But he doesn't know what else to do. Wants to fight for her and always ends up fighting _with_ her. Maybe she's right. Maybe they can never be more than this. Never better than this. Always sinking to the bottom, taking the cheapest, harshest route out.

"I better check on Jack…"

A declaration of love on the tip of his tongue. But Jacks name causes a knee-jerk reaction in him. Proving to himself and to her yet another time, that she's right. _They'd never work out together. _

"Hell yeah Kate...That's right! Pick the damn hero if you wanna', go kiss his goddamn boo-boos instead. I sure as hell ain't gonna' stop you. "

* * *

_He has to get out. _

Has to get the hell out of there and experiences almost a physical weight lifting off his chest as he breathes in the salty air blowing hard from the ocean. He walks far. Mile after mile after mile. Stops at numerous café's and bars downing a drink in each, making his way southwards. While people around him eat their breakfast or lunch, he gets increasingly intoxicated. Vaguely aware that this isn't the way to solve anything but truly beyond caring.

Ends up taking a cab and finds himself back at the bar they'd visited the previous night. It looks different in daylight and _damn_, the ghost of her is still there, smiling toothily like a cute Muppet doll by the bar. It's barely after lunch and he's drunk as a skunk. And the only thing he can think is that he needs to be rid of her. Needs to cut her away from him. Can't feel like this anymore. Not a minute longer.

Spots a scantily clad brunette by the bar with her friends and the decision to chat her up is instant. _Needs to. Has to._ Wants to evict Kate out of his mind, out of his heart.

Can't be this man any longer. _Not a second longer._

She's Australian, tall and lanky with absurdly large breasts for her slim frame. The kind he'd usually go for… before _she'd _ruined all of that for him. Spoiling him for all other women. The hair, shoulder length and cut in a feathery, sort of annoying flippy kind of way, hell he doesn't understand fashion nowadays. It's a warm auburn brown, the type that sometimes goes together with a milky complexion and if you're damn lucky, a couple of freckles. He studies her nose, as he offers to buy her a drink, and sure enough there are a few freckles there under a thick layer of make-up. Catching himself thinking that they're all wrong. _Not hers_. Her cleavage too deep, too vulgar, jiggling when she laughs. _Not hers._ Her voice a little nasal, her smile a little too sparkly. No goofy rabbity grin. _Not her._

_Not her._

Tries to rein back the doubt; _yeah, she'll do_. She'll do for a quick tumble between the sheets to take the edge of his pain. To erase her a little. _She'll do._

Convinces her to have a few drinks with him, even though she plays coy at first, saying that she isn't big on cocktails this early in the day. He turns on the charm, it doesn't take much, he could do this in his sleep. Flatters her a bit, teases her, butters her up and forty five minutes later she waves her hotel card key in his face and gives him a sly smile.

"I don't usually do things like this…" Her ear-rings are long gaudy things, dangling annoyingly when she moves. Her nose a little to pointy and her eyes a little too close together to be attractive he notices now. But hell, he doesn't care.

"Me neither Honey," he answers and that's a big fat lie. This is exactly the kind of thing he does. Or at least, it used to be. Before the island and the safe warmth of Juliet. Before _her _and her impossible hold on him.

And _god_, he needs this. He needs a mindless fuck, with a faceless girl. Someone who isn't her. Someone he doesn't give a damn about.

Her door at some swanky hotel nearby, saying something to the extent that it's far too early for them to end up like this and he says; _it's just the right time, baby_. She's giggling, fumbling with that key card, while he has his left hand far down her cleavage, fondling a positively rubbery breast. And he doesn't feel anything. Isn't even excited at the prospect of undressing those long lean limbs, of spreading her legs in front of him. _Suddenly disgusted_. Not by her, the girl. She is tipsy and sort of cute. Just a young thing out to have a bit of fun. Not her fault.

_But what the hell is wrong with him?_

"Sorry Sweetheart," he shrugs while extracting his hand from her blouse, backing away.

"What?" A frown so deep, her hard painted eyebrows meet the inner corners of her eyes. Hurt and humiliated.

"It ain't your fault darling. I gotta' go…"

Hears her mutter 'looser' behind him as he hurries down the corridor towards the elevator. _Her. _

It can't end like this.

It can't all end with a sordid fight and hard words. It can't end with him screwing random women for lunch. It can't end in this miserable, unworthy way.

He's won over hundreds of women, he's flirted, sweet-talked and charmed his way into countless of hearts and savings accounts along the way. That's what he does. That's the only thing he knows how to do. And if they're going down, and he has no doubt that they will. He'll fucking woo her off her feet all the way. He'll go down making love to her.

And he might be a bit off his keel and not entirely logical but a different sort of relief comes over him. _He isn't a total ass_. He didn't screw some stranger with silicon breasts he'd picked up while swirling on his barstool flashing worthless dimples. This, with her.

_It's real._

She's still here. He can still get to her. Slim odds for sure, but he sure as hell isn't gonna' give her up just like that. He'll fucking woo her as if she were worth a billion dollars.

* * *

Manages to hold onto this drunken optimism for about three insane paces across their little courtyard. Seriously doubting it by the time he's reached the door. Totally back to square one when he finds her in the kitchen. Washing dishes by the sink.

The warm fragrance of her like a haze floating across the entire room. Disconcerting. She turns around immediately. Fierce hurt radiating from every pore of her flawless skin. Her arms quickly crossed over her breasts. Dressed in just a t-shirt and jeans. His t-shirt as it happens. The gray-blue one from last night. Some faint traces of spots still visible. Remembers her fingers scrubbing it against the washboard this morning and wants to sink his nose into the fabric. Must smell of soap and sun and of her now. Shit. He's such a big stupid dunce. _Ain't no way he can screw his way out of this with some stranger. _He's so lost.

"Where were you?" She looks like she's about to cry and he pushes away the laundry speculations.

Wants to whisper; _sorry baby. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry._

"Just out and about Sweets," he grumbles instead. And hell, there must be something wrong with him. Wants her but he doesn't want to feel like this. Fuck the wooing, it was a stupid idea to begin with. It won't work with her, never really did anyway. Her survival instinct, her bullshit radar too astute.

"Yeah, yeah I know…." she sighs and returns to the grubby dishes in the sink. Several plates. She'd probably eaten lunch with Doc. "None of my business, I know…"

She throws a glance over her shoulder at him just standing there. He's aware of how he must smell of alcohol. And maybe of that other woman's perfume. She'd worn something sweet and cloying, he's sure it's sticking to his skin like shame. And she always was like a goddamn bloodhound. Her lips pouting. Trying to sass him out, planning her next move. Trying to anticipate his. The game, it's always on. Always.

And then somehow she twirls around, one step closer, slinks a hand behind his back into his right denim pocket. Draws her hand away before he has a chance to stop her, unfurling it in front of her, regarding the little square package silently. The only reaction, nostrils flaring, just a hint. Not much but he's freaking ecstatic._ She cares_. Wants to smile, his mouth almost aching, but he's too deep into this. Gotta' play this stupid game with her. Knows no other way unless they're both sloshed out of their minds. Doesn't help when only he is.

He snatches it back from her, just like that. Tucks it into his pocket again. Leans back, against the tiled kitchen wall, pretending to be unperturbed. When really it's just trying to stop himself from swaying.

"Ain't none of your business whether I go out an' use that or not darling. You know that."

" You met someone." It's a statement, not a question and he shrugs. She stands there, head hanging like a wilting flower, picking nervously with her t-shirt. With _his _goddamn t-shirt. "You went out, drank yourself silly and then you picked someone up…"

Her voice monotonous, as if she's relaying this information to him. Not a question.

"Well I ain't used it as you can see. Why do you care anyhows?" Tilts his head backwards so that he can look down at her.

"I don't."

"The hell you don't."

That little tremble of her bottom lip. Shit. He can't stand it when she does that. Like a little girl trying not to cry.

"Yeah okay. I care. So you happy now! You gonna' gloat now?" The muscle near her mouth twitching. Like a neglected, unwanted kitten, someone's tried to drench in a ditch. Hissing and spitting when you pick it up by the skin of its neck. Plunging its razor sharp little teeth in your hand when you try to pet it. Because it's not used to affection, not used to tenderness. Doesn't know how it feels _not_ to be afraid.

"You saying you want us to be exclusive Sugarpops?" His turn to cross his arms over his chest, so that he doesn't reach out and pull her near.

"Haha. Hilarious Sawyer, you just are a hoot and a half aren't you?" Voice like a desiccated old prune and her dryness does nothing but turn him on. Because her eyes are sort of shimmery and if he's not completely out of his mind; a little hopeful.

Drives his fingers through his hair, acting disinterested and aloof but the sentimental stuff that comes out of his big unreliable mouth is anything but.

"Just saying… 'cause if you do…. Well, hell, you know damn well how I feel 'bout you. So if you _wanna'_ make it your business…just…"

_I love you. _

That's what he wants to say.

_I love you. _And he knows he's lost the right to use those words a long time ago. Lost them somewhere in the Deep South about 20 years ago. Early on in his career. A pair of strong thighs clenched around his hips, blonde bouffant, shiny rich hair swaying above his face, a jeweled manicured hand clasped around his dick. Large surgically enhanced breasts pressed against him. _'You're incredible Sawyer'._

_I love you._

Yeah, he'd forfeited the right to ever use them in any real sense. Lost it just about there. And maybe it's not an worn-out, soiled 'I love you' that she needs from him. Hell, come to think of it. He might as well go to that damn island. If it means she'll stay. _Here._ Out of danger. _Yeah_, then he would.

He ain't ever been of use to anyone but himself, never had to look out for anyone but number one. Even with Juliet, in a way, it was mostly her taking care of him. And he isn't much to keep, certainly ain't someone worth hanging onto. He has drunk too much, isn't really sane. He almost jumped in the sack with a stranger for Pete's sake. This idea over-the-top melodramatic and less than well thought through. But the decision is taken just like that. Because if he can keep her safe, away from the island. Then his almost forty years of existence on earth might not have been a total waste of space.

"Kate, someone's at the door!" Jack's voice from the front. So he's still there after all. Would have thought he'd go running back to Hurley's after the fight. Is just about to tell her, to strike a deal with her. _I'll go,_ if you stay. The only way it can be. "Kate, you hear me?"

_Great timing pal, _he thinks.

"Would you mind opening Jack, please…" she calls back. But she looks at him. And he's got no idea what she's thinking right now. As if she's really taking in what he'd said, evaluating it. That little nervous way she's got, sliding her thumbnail across her bottom lip. _Now._ He's gotta' tell her now.

_I'll go, get them back. For you._

And then, Jack again. His heavy footsteps across the living room floor, calling out:

"Kate! The police… outside the gate… You've gotta' now!"

"What… what?" The pallor of her face. As if she's just all of suddenly bloodless.

His head around the kitchen doorway, acknowledging Sawyer with a nervous glance.

"They're looking for you…. I'll try stalling them… James, you've got her? Get her out of here!" he says and turns on his heel. "Now!"

And he freezes. It's embarrassing how long it takes for him to react.

"Christ girl. Is there another way out of here…" and as he says it he knows how stupid the question is. The house is in a walled courtyard, surrounded by other courtyards on all sides except towards the little alley. Where right now, the goddamn cops are waiting to get their paws on her.

"No, oh god no…" she whispers and his heart is so high in his throat he almost tosses his cookies there and then. He's not great under this kind of pressure, especially not when it involves law enforcement of any kind. Likes things well planned and neatly laid out. Doesn't specifically like surprises. Except perhaps the ones involving lacy lingerie.

But she, the longtime fugitive, _yeah he should have known_, she'd know what to do. _Fast, fast, fast._ Not the first time for her. Off like a shot. Grabbing him by the arm. Yanking him with breakneck speed through the house, through the backdoor. Barefoot and quicker than a wildfire, taking the steps in one big fluid leap sending him lurching after like an octopus on dry land. No coordination of his extremities whatsoever.

"Which one?" he says and his heartbeat is so loud he has a hard time hearing his own voice. "We'll have to chance it Freckles."

She doesn't say anything but he can see her racking her brain, head swirling around. _Chop-chop._ Weighing up the pros and cons of the two walls surrounding the backyard. _Friend or foe?_

"So take your pick girl, which neighbor is your favorite?" High strung and seriously spooked.

"I, I don't know…."

And he can almost hear the handcuffs clicking closed around her wrists. _Gotta' go, gotta' go. _They can't take her.

"Now Kate! We've gotta' go now," hoarse wheezing. Damn it, _he ain't got nerves for this shit. _His stomach tight and painful.

"Okay. That one," she whispers and paint towards the left wall. "Ninik's house."

She is barefoot but there is no time to get anything from the room. For all they know, the cops might already be inside sniffing her socks by now.

"Get up, I'll give you a hoist!" He holds his hands out, fingers laced together for her to brace herself on. Hoping like hell that Jack has his stalling techniques down to a pat. She gets up, quick and lean as a cat, managing to avoid being impaled by the sharp metal spikes covering a part of the top wall. Balancing precariously, before she jumps out of sight. He doesn't hesitate a second. Follows her, clumsily drawing himself up with sheer arm force, swaying before he vaults himself over, managing to rip his jean-leg on the spikes.

He lands less than gracefully, wobbling in his stupid rubber sandals. Looking out over the neat little courtyard, a mirror image of their own. Not feeling safe. _Damn! _Not at all. hating the unknown.

A large silvery dog rushing out as if from nowhere. The aggressive bark frazzling his nerves but Kate crouches down to say _'hallo'_, letting the dog nuzzle his nose against the palm of her hand and he quiets down. One of those solid Balinese dogs, broad heads and sturdy legs, short coat of fur.

"Ya ampun! Ada apa?" An old grandmother, tiny and white-haired with a little plump baby in a sling near her flat chest bustles out of the house, sloppily tied sarong flapping around her thin legs. And she's so loud, the voice shrill and piercing. Or maybe it's the fact that he is so jittery. Sawyer has to resist the urge to overpower her and put a muzzle on. Certain she'll call the cops next.

But she just clicks her tongue at the sight of them, as if she'd found two naughty children stealing fruit in her garden. A flow of incomprehensible scolding. But the tone is universal, common for mothers all over the world.

She seems to know Kate and she gives her a quick maternal embrace that has Sawyer exhaling. He might be way off but it sure doesn't look like a prelude to handing them over to the cops. She leads Kate into the house, one stick-thin arm across her shoulders as she shepherds her forward. Sawyer can do nothing but lumber on behind them, the dog on his heels sniffing and nudging his legs with his wet nose.

Sits them down in a strange Rococo-style sofa, gilded lion-feet and all, still covered in plastic. It's a dark and stuffy room. The décor bizarre for the tropical climate. A thick Persian carpet covering the marble floor. Heavily varnished book cases, doilies and crystal vases and chandeliers everywhere. The walls are white and hung with tasteless paintings in elaborate gold-plated frames. It's the kind of place that you have to sit straight-backed and fold your hands in your lap in.

"Ada apa 'Nak?" she says while pushing Kate's shoulder to force her to take a seat next to Sawyer.

"Police Ninik… We need help…"

It surprises him that Kate seems to understand, though she's been here for a while. Must have picked up a few words. Either that or she just pretending to. Is relieved to see that old Ninik doesn't seem freaked out by the mention of the boys in blue. Or in brown as happens to be the case here.

"Ada apa dengan Polisi 'Nak?" And all he catches from that is 'police' but the word that comes next he understands perfectly in combination with the old woman's knitted brow.

"Narkoba?"

"No…no Ninik. Not narkoba…not drugs…" Kate's earnest face and they all know that they are at this old lady's mercy. All she's got to do is prance a few steps out in the little alley and give a holler and Kate's ass would be in the slammer in two red seconds. _Damn._

"Ya udah… tunggu ya 'Nak!" she nods and disappears into her little kitchen adjacent to the living room. A very similar layout to their own house next door. Kate's shoulders sink and her face gets a little of its color back. A nervous sideway glance at him, biting her lip.

"So… you reckon we're safe…?" he asks and wants to squeeze her hand where it is, stiffly pinching the denim fabric of her jeans between her fingers. Fidgeting and fiddling like she always does under stress. He wouldn't be too surprised if she were to chew her hair too. Her type of nervousness so childish, so out of tune with the full-grown woman she is.

"Yeah…. Yeah I think so."

Wants to tuck her in close. _Shield her. _Looks at her sitting there, eyes like a hunted animal, flittering nervously around the old lady's living room. Her hair pulled into that messy pony tail. He stretches his hand towards her. Slides the back of his finger across those round sweet cheeks. _A murderer. _Impossible to match that word with the picture of the girl beside him, the haunting, wild beauty of her. She throws him a hasty half-smile. Forced, just flexing of facial muscles, nothing but anxiety behind it. His hand moves to the back of her head, a nail hitching under the rubber-band holding her hair together. A little tug and he snaps it off.

"Ouch,…what are you doing?"

He doesn't answer. Doesn't know what to say except. He loves her like that. Messy, disheveled, artless. Whatever shit she's been through, and he's sure there is plenty, there is something pure about her. Something that no one has managed to reach, no one has gotten close enough to sully.

The old woman makes them tea. The kind of tea that makes you feel cared for. Hot and sweet and strong, served in beautiful tall glasses with long silver spoons and a plate of sweets wrapped in banana leafs. And this random act of kindness makes no sense in Sawyer's universe where everyone acts the way they do because they want something.

The baby has mysteriously disappeared out of sight and maybe she's put it down for sleep or hell, he doesn't know why he even cares. They spend what seems like hours sitting awkwardly and stiffly perched on the plastic of her sofa while she buzzes around. Apparently only mildly concerned with the presence of a wanted criminal in her house this afternoon. He doesn't get it at all, but he thinks that he'll remember this. Will remember her unfathomable generosity. _There are people like this, _he thinks, _doing something for nothing._

They hardly say a word to each other. Just wait. They wait and avoid thinking of what might happen next. Only once does she look at him. Just for a fleeting moment, giving him a little apologetic smile as if it's her fault that he has to sit here, his impatient jean-clad ass sweaty and humid, sticking to plastic covered sofa cushion in the middle of Bali. It might very well be.

But he'd made a choice and somewhere along the line, _so had Jack_. He'd told him to take care of her. _Him. _A strange feeling of gratefulness towards the other man. He could have turned her in. Could have let the police march right in there. It's what he'd always believed in anyway. Redemption, paying for your sins. And still, he hadn't.

They just sit there and some time after what seems like an eternity in hell, the old lady comes back into the living room with the baby. Proudly holding up the curiously bug-eyed little sucker. Stretches the little fellow towards Kate and he doesn't know where it comes from. Something subconscious for sure. He lurches forward and grabs the kid from the old granny, as if he's really eager to hold the ugly spud. She seems reluctant at first, and hell, he'd be too, but gives in when he sends off his widest honeysuckle smile in her direction and forces himself to coo over the bloody thing. Leaves them there, a little wary but willing to give them a chance.

Sawyer settles the pudgy baby over his knee. Facing away from her. He knows this. Somehow he knows. The holding random people's babies, it breaks her apart.

"Thanks…" she exhales and he wants to throw the kid in the corner and kiss her there and then. Make it better. Shit. _What is it with women and kids?_ That build in compulsive longing for babies – he doesn't get it. He reckons, if it were up to men, there be no more people born in the world. And maybe that would be for the best. Seeing as how the world ain't a safe place. Not for a kid. _Him and her_, both excellent proofs of that.

He sits for a few minutes, counting the seconds until decently enough time has passed and he can pad out into the kitchen and had the old lady her grandbaby back.

Kate. There is no place in the world left for her to hide. Not from the police, not from her past. And certainly not from babies.

Finally, as dusk starts to fall and the prayer calls from a nearby mosque echoes through the little neighborhood, she comes in with a wide toothless smile on her face. Stretches a pair of cheap rubber sandals towards Kate that even Sawyer can see won't fit her. Far too small, like a child's sandals. Mickey Mouse on the sole. But hell, this ain't the time to be picky. Kate thanks her as if she's just been gifted a diamond the size of Sahara.

"Udah pergi!" she says, squeezing Kate's shoulder with her bony fingers. "Aman."

And he has no idea what it means but she escorts them to the front gate of her impeccable courtyard. Sticks her head out ahead of them and gestures towards the main road, away from the beach.

"Ayo, udah aman. Lewat situ!"

He grumbles a worthless 'thank you' while taking her little birdlike hand in his. Feeling dangerously touched and emotional. Almost cries as she reaches up to give him a quick pat on his cheek, as if he were a little boy, worthy of this inexplicable kindheartedness. Kate hugs her hastily before they make a dash for it.

Trying to walk normally down the little alley, heads held low. They don't speak. Just concentrate on moving their feet. Everything has changed. It's a completely new board game. And hell, he doesn't have a plan for this.

He has some money on his pocket and a Visa card. That's it. She's got nothing. Just a pair of children's sandals and him. Both relatively worthless possessions.

…

They walk a bit out along the busy main road. Catch a Bemo, one of the local minibuses first. _Scared, so scared_. But he's here with her. He didn't hesitate to jump over that wall with her. Didn't whine about spending the whole afternoon holding their breaths on the old lady's sofa.

He doesn't have to be here. But he is. _He's with her._

That inner monologue that she can never stave off. She isn't worth it. She can't ask this from him. And then, something else happens.

Watching him across her in the crowded Bemo, knees knocking into knees, sweat pearling down his neck and forehead, his Adam's apple moving up and down as he swallows repeatedly. His eyes that snag on hers. Gives her a slow clip with the eyelids. Like a cat saying everything is alright. _Don't worry_. His lips looking painfully dry and chapped forming the words '_you okay?_' She nods, but she isn't sure. They have no idea where they are going. Nowhere to go. The police, she assumes Dewi has a hand in them finding her. She suspects Interpol will be involved soon too. She has nothing, no money , no clothes, no passport. But all she can think of right now, is _him_. Here with her.

She shouldn't be ok. Should be frantic, should be more upset than this. Still she is alright. Holding it together just fine. And maybe it' because of him. The man across from her, staring at her as if she is worth running for. As if she was worth this sacrifice. He sits in front of her, like a big grumpy buffalo squeezed in between dainty Balinese bodies. Perspiration above his upper lip making her want to lean over and taste him. Taste his inexplicable, obstinate affection for her. He's here, no hesitation. He'd run with her as if it were a no-brainer.

And all he seems to want from her in return.

_Her._

That thought, that intangible flicker of awareness at the back of her mind, abruptly turns brighter, blazes across her brain like bonfire until the conscious thought has been formed.

_He knows. He knows something about her. _

His unbending struggle, the clumsy boorish way he stubbornly pushes on. _He knows. _That care for her, the undeniable gentleness, never judging. His misguided concern for her, that fiercely protective streak. Possessive, thinly veiled affection.

_**He knows.**_

And why it comes to her or how she can be so certain she has no idea and frankly… she doesn't want to look at it too closely. _He knows. _Everything.

And she's been so scared of this, with him like with everyone else before. She has so much shame to hide, it's impossible to let anyone close. She always has to play her cards close to her chest, always have to keep people at a safe distance. And she's been like that for so long, she doesn't know any other way. But he knows. And still the realization doesn't make the sky fall down. Doesn't make her die from the shame._ It doesn't._ Just like with Tom. It feels like that. That unspeakable stain, just something that is part of her and that he has already taken into account, already accepted into the bargain. All the shit, all the crap that she comes with.

Somehow he knows.

_Somehow, he wants her anyway._

And if this were a movie, one of those romantic comedies with a guaranteed happy ending, she'd lose no time. She wouldn't be afraid, wouldn't worry. Wouldn't think about the future, wouldn't agonize about tomorrow. She wouldn't.

_She'd tell him. _Just tell him, right now, this very second. How she feels.

_About him._

_But this is no movie. _No short-cuts around it. Tomorrow exists, daunting and intimidating, coming whether they want it to, or not. So she sits there mutely across from him. Obsessing over his beautiful hands hanging over his knees, as if he's an abnormally tall man, which she guesses he is here among slight Balinese proportions.

_Loves him. _

And it isn't a choice. Is just how it is. She might not be able to make him happy, might not be able to give him what he needs. A love from her may be insignificant, of no value at all. Still, she loves him for how he loves her, for no reason at all. For that acceptance. For knowing and still wanting. _Her_.

And she thinks, that she might be worthless and void of substance. But she's no coward. _That's the one thing she's not_.

_No coward._

* * *

They switch from the Bemo to a taxi for the journey southwards only dimly aware of where they are going. But it doesn't matter. They just have to get away. Put distance between them and the little house. The house she'd made her home, built a little make-shift fraudulent family in. He feels his heart sinking in his stomach, heavy and weighty. For her loss… all that she's lost.

Her hands, white knuckled and clasped in her lap, not reaching for him. But she moves so that she sits as close as humanly possible. Sitting there as if attached to each other. Sides glued to one another. Wants to put an arm around her, but it doesn't seem that kind of moment. She's distant and he fears for what she'll do next. Send him on his merry way. Say she doesn't need nobody, doesn't need his help. That she prefers to be on the run on her own. Old habits and all that….

It jolts him when she speaks up. And he doesn't want to hear the rest. Sees a 'goodbye' hovering somewhere above them, in not a too far distance. _Fuck._ _Can't even think of it._

"Sawyer…" she says looking out through the open window on her side. The soft breeze making her hair blow against his cheek. Itchy and a little irritating. Her fragrance in his face. He can't handle all that now.

"Yeah Pumpkin… You okay?"

Turns towards the car window completely, so that the only thing he can see is the back of her head. Cars honking their horns, motorbikes swerving by. A hell of a noise filling their ears as they move with a snail's speed through the dense downtown Kuta traffic.

Her hair flapping crazily around her head, face turned mulishly away from him. Mumbles something under her breath and it annoys him. If she's going to hurt him, he wants her to have the decency to give it to him straight. Tells himself he can handle it. Braces himself for what may come.

"Speak up Sugar! Ain't no way I can hear you in this damn commotion…"

The cab, smelling of smoke and sweaty feet. The driver veering left and right as if he's purposely trying to make them retch in the sticky, faux leather backseat. He takes a deep breath. Finds it hard to swallow.

Here it comes. _The goodbye. _

We can't. We shouldn't. We won't. Be together.

Angry now, inhales, preparing himself to cut her down. Riling himself up. Whatever she says. He'll cut it down. He won't let her feed him that bullshit. The; '_we'd never work out…'_ Doesn't need to hear it again. Ever.

He can barely hear her, is just about to sneer another; '_speak up for fuck's sake!'_ when the words make their way into his brain. _Into his heart. _Her voice fluttering in with the wind from the side-window, air tasting of led from exhaust pipes and incense from prayer altars. The sound of her, like the softest caress. So quiet, he almost misses it again.

"I… love you."

_Just like that._

And he didn't have to beg for it. Didn't have to bargain. Didn't even have to trick her into saying it.

_Just like that_. The world is right again.

And it doesn't matter that they don't know where the hell they're going, what they're doing. It doesn't matter that they have nowhere to go, no future, nothing going for them. She's here.

And right now, _she is his_.

* * *

_Sorry if this is beginning to bore a good number of people. And for those who wonder, no, not many more chapters left now. 3 or 4 or something like that. _

_Leave a review if you liked it, or if you didn't..._


	27. Another aberration

_Thanks so, so,so much for the feedback, the notes, the reviews… very grateful for every single one of them._

_I wanted so much to happen in this chapter and well, I had to push the good parts forward to the next because as ususal it just became so long. Now when I read it back I realize that it makes it quite odd. I hope you still enjoy it for what it is._

_Rated M for language and themes._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

* * *

**Another aberration**

* * *

_Maybe she is just plain stupid._

But what's done is done and the words are out. There can be no recall, no taking it back. Like pushing a boulder out onto thin ice, watching how the cracks spread around it like cobweb, knowing_, knowing_ for sure that it will end in disaster. That it will sink. There is no other possible result.

So what the hell had she expected from him?

That he'd squeal, or faint in a giddy happiness? Give out a victory cry right there in the back of the taxi. Maybe flash her a grin as wide as a canyon or haul her in for a kiss so heated it would have made the hair stand up on her neck and the driver's eyes pop out of his head. Romantic notions, desired reactions to something not worth more than perhaps a raised eyebrow. _Tops._

She holds her breath. Measures it out when she finally exhales, little by little. To stave off fear. Telling herself that it's alright.

_He doesn't have to say anything._

But truth is. She'd expected _something_ at least. A grumpy sneer or a snide joke at her expense even. A reaction, any kind of reaction at all would have been enough. And it's devastating - this nothingness. _Not a word._ Not a sign that he's even heard.

_Shit._ This wasn't necessary. Bites into the insides of her cheeks. _Hard._

Not the time, nor the place to let her heart hang out. His body is immobile next to her. The mass of warm and breathing man beside her. Her arm pressed in to his side. An oppressive silence filling up the entire cab. Even the driver must sense it because he switches on the radio. Loud wailing music doing nothing to diffuse the tension.

She can't even think straight. Wants to reach for his hand where it lies motionless on his lap. And she knows how it feels to hold it. Large, warm, a gentleness always at odds with his gruff persona. It puzzles her, him just sitting there, letting her stew. He's been bugging her for this, forever. Nagging her like a child, pushing it almost since he got here; _'Say it, say it. You gotta' let me in. Say it.'_

Or at least she'd thought so. Winding her up, needling her, provoking her relentlessly. _'Who do you want?'_

Sneaks a little quick peek at him. His face stony, stubbornly staring ahead. As if he's carsick and has to keep his eyes on the road. His cheeks rough, the short stubble almost glittering in the low glimmer of the last rays of the evening sun. And that bottom lip, with its perfect split in the middle, his eyes hard and blank. She turns back to her window. Certain that he's seen her looking, but not a nerve seems to move on his face.

_Maybe he really didn't hear?_ Is she supposed to repeat it, shout it to his face?

Maybe he doesn't want this after all? The obligation of being with her. Of running with her. She can't give him anything after all. This. This is all there is. And perhaps, perhaps he's just coming to that conclusion too.

But it's too late. Too damn late.

She keeps staring through the open car window at throws of people making their way down the potholed sidewalks. The sky above the buildings is cobalt blue, the smell of incense even here, making her throat tighten. Feeling stupid. _Stupid. Stupid._

And she might be unusually stupid, because she hadn't expected this. The absolute terror at the prospect of loosing him now.

* * *

Her fleeting look at him and then back again as if nothing had happened. He breaks out in a nervous sweat there beside her. Her face turned away from him. _Again._ It might as well never had happened.

But it did. _It did._ And it changes _everything_.

Sitting there next to him, dark hair that swoops around in the wind-stream from the window. The little Balinese taxi driver ogling them curiously through his rear-view mirror. Christ, what a show they could put on for him. If only he could break through this. Reach her. Her eyelashes, dark and Bambi-like in profile. Biting her fucking nails, one hand wedged between her own knees. Messed-up, and hopeless. As if she hadn't just professed her love to him. As if she hadn't just mumbled _those_ words in a robot-like voice to the frantic delirious traffic of downtown Kuta. Said it as if it were none of his goddamn business.

But she'd said it.

_To him._ Him. Corrupt, faithless asshole that he is.

And he knows how much it must have cost her to produce this little pitiful affirmation. This is as much as she can give and she's just emptied her account. Made a withdrawal down to the last cent. For him. _Him._

_And damn._

As pathetic and inadequate as it is, he could just swoon. Right here, right now.

He'd imagined this moment so many times. Back on the island. Had laid in his tent night after night, listening to the soothing jungle serenade, the rustle of insects and little animals in the woods behind the camp. How he'd lied there imagining how it might be, what circumstances would compel her to finally say it. _Waiting for her_. Hoping that tonight might be one of those nights, when she'd get a little restless, a little antsy. One of those nights when she might decide to take that nervous energy out on him, searching him out. Might look for an outlet, his naked skin against hers. How she'd barge in, both shy and aggressive at the same time.

The ridiculous musings he'd entertained himself with. The scenarios endless, ranging from the sweet and shy, the overtly sexual, to the sensually charged anger, depending on his mood and preference. Maybe a fight, fierce and aggressive, tumbling, rolling, struggling for dominance. And then her sweet submission, anger turning into lust, the reluctant confession. Or his favourite; the breathless reveal as he pushed into her, slick stroke after slick stroke. The words in a huff as she quivered underneath him. _Yeah,_ he'd pictured that one often enough.

He had nurtured so many foolish daydreams of what might have been the right time, the right setting, the right mood. An endless row of fantastic flights of fancy. But none.

_None of them._

Had been like this.

The two of them in a smelly beat-up cab, running form the cops. Trying not to throw up while the driver does his best to challenge their fortitude. _Sitting there_. Not looking at each other. Her ' _I loved you_', just thrown out there. Blurted out like something banal, something unimportant. _No. _None of his scenarios had been like this.

Wants to ask her, no nag her, overwhelm her with questions. Needy and insecure. Wants to weed out the _'if's'_ and _'but's'_. What happens now? Her bewildering unemotional little declaration, _what does it mean_?

_She'd said; she loves him._

Loves him? As in _more _than Jack? As in _love-of-my-life;__ 'I'd-take-a-ring-from-you-any-day?'_

Or loves him as in; _thanks for being here_, _buddy_. Is there a commitment baked in there somewhere? Is it her and him now, are they a given? Can he tag along like a little puppy dog behind her forever and fucking ever? Or will she push him away now, a pat on the cheek before she sends him packing. Tell him it was never meant to be. _Love you but I don't' think we could be together._ It would never work out.

_But fuck it all. _Fuck his doubt, his reservations, the nagging misgivings gathering at the back of his mind.

_She'd said it! _

She'd finally said it. And no, he ain't gonna' second-guess it, ain't gonna' waste time speculating. He's going to take it at face value. He'll gather up those poor little words as if they were priceless pearls. Keep them close to his heart. Whatever way she'd said them, she'd said them. Nothing can change that fact.

_To him nonetheless. Him._

Though he shouldn't be thinking about it at all right now. It's hardly a priority in the larger picture of things. Should concentrate all of his efforts on trying to plot their next step, calculate their next move. _He knows this._ But it doesn't make it any easier. Sitting there with her thigh, lean and hard next to his, jeans pressed against jeans. Unnecessarily close. Doesn't turn around again, doesn't look at him. But damn if he's gonna' let this one slide. Pretend as nothing.

No. _No way._

He places his hand on the leg nearest to him, casually, as if he's hardly aware of it. Senses the muscles of her thigh tensing under his palm. Feeling himself awakening, stirring at the thought of how she might part them for him. How he'll bring her so high, she might say it again._ Like she means it._ Words moaned against his throat _Oh fuck. _Now really isn't the time for this. He has a million things to do. Must get hold of Hurley, get together an exit strategy to get her the hell out of here as soon as possible.

But he's all heart and dick, no space for anything else now. Just emotion and impulse. Wants nothing, _nothing_ but her bare warm skin, flush against him. Wants the physical confirmation of her measly little words. _Now. Now. Now._ Leans forward, tells the driver to step on it. Bring them to the first hotel he can find.

_Now_. Immediately. Can't wait a second longer.

When he sits back in his seat again, she turns a little. Tilts her head, so that it rests on his shoulder and though her hair gets in his face, tickles his nose in a magnificently irritating way, he melts in sheer unadulterated delight at the gesture. Better yet, when her hand comes to sneaking across his own arm, down to his hand, light and small and a little scared. A feathery kind of touch that has him catching his breath. _Shit._ Wants to stick his goddamn head out the window like a big happy dog, let the smooth, warm evening air flow against his face.

She'd said it. _To him._

The taxi can't go fast enough, can't get there in time. Oh damn.

_She said it._

Beautiful girl. But it's more than that. Much more than that. It's how she's scared, scared to love him, but she does anyway. It's how she is so frightened of trusting him. And she does anyways.

The taxi driver turns the music up even louder, swerving left and right through the crazy bustle of Kuta. The music blaring from the loudspeaker, and he must have hit the jackpot. Because the next tune the hysterically babbling Balinese DJ choses to spin is James Brown, foreplay in itself, _'It's a man's world'_. And he thinks that _hell yeah,_ it's a man's world. No place safe for a girl like her. Nowhere, anywhere. But he'll keep her safe. As best he can. He'll keep her safe.

He pushes his nose against her ear. That scent of hers with the undertones of vanilla.

"Say it again…"

"No." But a sideways glance proves that her mouth is struggling not to smile. Can't resist smoothing his hand against her thigh feeling how her fingers tighten across his knuckles.

And they don't know where the hell they're going. Hell he doesn't care as long as he gets there. Needs to shed clothes, needs to lick his demands across her little funny belly. _Tell me again._

_Mine. All mine._

* * *

They get the driver to show them a cheap rundown hotel that is near the beach and in the middle of the nauseating concoction of backpackers, surfers and local tourists of Kuta. The hotel, if you could call that piece of crap a 'hotel', is located by one of the little alleys off the main road. It's old and the reception smells strongly of mildew and camphor. The oppressive dark paneling is falling apart and the place has definitely seen better days, but he reckons it's the kind of shitty place where they won't be too fussy about two strangers walking off the street with no passports nor any luggage.

_And he's right. _They're even offered the delicate option to rent by the hour, which has him thinking delightfully dirty thoughts and her blushing a rosy pink.

He strays behind her as they walk through an unkempt garden area surrounded by ugly little huts painted dark brown for some incomprehensible reason. Wants a chance to study her from afar. The unexpected turn of events, even more disquieting than the escape from the house. The way his t-shirt drapes around her waist and her hips. Her feet in those Mickey Mouse sandals, too big, heels sticking out over the back, touching the ground. The urge to just drag her into a bed and pacify the relentless yearning for her.

Has to take himself by the collar, and put his mind back on track. It's not as if he has time to fucking stargaze right now.

There are more pressing matters to take care of than to undress her in a sleazy substandard Balinese hotel. Has to think of her safety. Dangerous for them to remain in one place, sitting ducks if indeed Interpol and the Indonesian police have been drawn in. He has no clue about extradition deals and treaties between the two countries but hell, he ain't that eager to find out either. They have to leave. Have to make plans. And she's got no passport, not even her fake one, come to think of it, neither does he. It's not as if they can get on the first flight out of there.

They're shown a ramshackle hovel that the polite tall old receptionist calls 'bungalow' which in Sawyer's expert opinion is stretching it a tad too far. In any case they're not expecting a fucking honeymoon suite, all they need a place to crash for a night while they get their bearings.

The room has two twin beds pushed together, draped in soiled grubby bedcovers that make him think of vile sex. She takes a seat on it as he tips the receptionist. Sits there, looking expectantly at him. Clear green eyes that say; _come, come, come_. And he has to steel himself. Decides not to look at her. It takes all he's got to steer his mind away from her. The bed. Them.

The room isn't much and he hates the idea of leaving her there but it has a TV at least and a loud humming air condition that must be at least a hundred years old. A brown armchair is perched in the corner of the room, the stuffing creeping out of one of the armrests. Two rickety bedside tables with lamps made from red clay, shaped like standing frogs.

But all in all it's not a bad place.

There's a bathroom with a bathtub and fairly clean facilities. A mirror over the bed, a testimony perhaps, to the exotic tastes of the clientele here. But hell, he ain't complaining. He's here. With her.

And for now at least. _They're safe._

The evening air outside is heavy and liquid, rain hanging like a soft humid blanket above them. He closes the door carefully behind the receptionist. Tugs the curtains closed. Synthetic and peach colored, enough to make even the most desensitized brute want to vomit.

He barely has time to turn around. There she is. Pulling at buttons, struggling with his belt. Shoving her warm little hands under his shirt instead and god, he chokes. Pushes her up against the door. Her body, lithe and hard against him. His own fingers sliding up her neck, into her hair and the kiss. _Fuck_. It's worth _everything._ Open and hungry and a little nervous. As if they've never done this before. But there is something of a 'first time' about it all. Something new and sheer and fragile about the two of them here now. She tastes like tea, both bitter and sweet from the old lady's cookies. A little bit of powder sugar on her lips and hell, he has to break it off. Has to clear his head. This won't do. Run away from the fucking cops and go straight to screwing in some rundown shack.

Can't get near that bed tempting as it is. He knows if he takes one step in that direction, one step closer, her on that bed with her creamy skin and waiting lips, _nothing_ will be done today. He's got to get out of here, get things moving.

"Baby, I've got to go."

She takes a step back. Eyes ashamed, he knows she feels silly, the rejection rocking her fragile ego. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and her eyes are cast on the floor.

"Yeah… sure."

Backs up slumping down on that bed. Alone. Looking small and dejected now.

One last glance at that mirror, imagining how she might look underneath it. No time to find out right now, rips his feet from their spot on the floor and makes them move towards the door.

_Damn._ Can't stay here. Not now._ But she loves him. _

___Said she loves him._

* * *

He passes her the key as if nothing has happened, a huge clay key ring with the picture of a frog on it. Shoving his hair back from his face, suddenly looking cool and distant. Doesn't touch her again. Eyes flittering, away from her.

"Here, you hold onto this," he says and painstakingly avoids meeting her eyes. She takes it, dumbly, her mind slug-like. Watching him turn the doorknob. Panics at the thought of him leaving her. Dumping her there._ What is this? _

"What…where are you going?"

"Have some things to take care of. Don't wait up." The cold, short snappy modus of talking. It breaks her heart. _ Don't go. _Her lips longing for his. Her skin shouting for him. Feeling foolish now. Doesn't know where to put her hands, fidgeting with them.

"Oh… yeah of course."

_Don't go. Come here. Come here. _Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow. But she knows that isn't true. He's right. Hates that she has to stay behind, though she sees the logic in it. Safer like this, for both of them.

She spends the next few hours watching Indonesian soaps, news and talk shows while pacing like a caged animal across the floor in the tattered old hotel room. Not daring to leave it, nothing to busy herself with. And he. Is not there. It freaks her out that she should ache so for him. He's only been gone for a few hours for god's sake.

Walks, back and forward in the room, wearing down the floor for sure. Toys with the remote to the air conditioning unit, peeps through the curtains. Longing for him. Knows it will be alright, as soon as he's back. With her.

* * *

He walks like a man with a purpose now. A singular, all consuming purpose. All for her now.

His heart full of her. She's back there. Waiting for him, and tonight, later when he comes back. He'll make her say it again. Make her whisper it against his lips. Make her exhale it as she comes. _He will._

Walks the main street up, trying to avoid bumping into the straggles of rowdy tourists. Barely seven o'clock, the party mode is already on. He makes a phone call from a Wartel, a sort of kiosk, open against the street and with phones that you can use with a card purchased from a girl with too tight t-shirt and a disturbing faux American accent. Swiveling on her chair, looking bored. The only thing missing a large pink bubblegum.

Hurley answers almost immediately, as if he's been waiting by the phone.

"Jeez… where are you? We've been worried…"

"We're downtown…in Kuta. Listen, need a hand buddy, I'll meet you somewhere. Need to get some stuff from the house."

"Well Jack says they cleaned out Kate's things, took it for 'evidence'… but your stuff might still be there."

He makes a little pause while Sawyer hears him speaking on the side of the phone, a mumble of male voices, and then he's back again.

"Okay dude, just hang tight. Jack will get your gear, we'll meet down near Hard Rock… there is a little place nearby called Eddie's. See you there around eightish, alright?"

"Thanks Hurley, hey… can I speak to Jack for a sec…?"

"Eh… well, wait, I'll check if he… if he's still.. you know… around…" Awkward. Hugo is a useless liar.

"Cut it Hugo, I know he's there. I'll be nice, alright."

Holds the line, hears a whisper a humming of barely audible voices, irritable and reluctant. Sweats in the confined space inside the kiosk. And then Jack, wary and cautious.

"Yeah?"

"Hey… Jack. I need you to do something for… well it's for _her_ alright." How fucking hard should it be to ask him a favor?

"Sure. Just tell me what it is. I'll do it."

It stuns him. The immediate answer. No hesitation now. But then again _he_ loves her too. Just the same. Loves her and he can't hate him for it. Can't blame him.

"There is a piece of cloth, maybe, if it's still there, I reckon it might be under her pillow. Green. Would you get it?... For her?"

Hates asking but he reckons it mustn't be easy on Jack either. He's just lost her. In a crappy taxi on the way to Kuta. Just lost the girl to this asshole standing here with his palms slippery from perspiration, clutching a telephone that smells of smoke and longing.

"Yeah, absolutely. I'll check." Leaves enough empty space for Sawyer to suspect that he's just dropped the line. " Hey… is she? Is she alright?"

"Yeah, yeah she's fine," he says and curses his masculine genes, making it impossible for them to speak, to connect. "Jack… thanks. Thanks for what you did and, that shit this morning… I..."

"It's okay. Doesn't matter James."

And just like that. Forgiven by the man who loves her too. Same as him. Almost the same. But he'll do it better. He'll make her happy, keep her happy. Childish, stupid promises that he doubts he can keep. But he'll sure as hell try.

"The cloth. It's a baby blanket. It's Aaron's, reckon she wants it." Gruff and awkward, the way he has to be with this man.

"No problem. If it's there I'll get it."

* * *

When he gets to Eddie's, Hurley, Miles and Henry are there, waiting for him, each with a tall slim beer-glass in front of them. Hurley actually gets up to give him an emotional hug as he approaches the table. Miles nods, reluctantly, somewhat thawing perhaps. Henry looks like hell, as usual. Sweaty and crinkled.

_No Jack._

And for the first time ever, he feels a disappointment over Jack's absence. Would have done anything to bring her that stupid blanket tonight.

"Dude," Hurley pats him on the back as he sits down between him and Miles. "Dude, that was something huh?"

"Yeah… It wadn't fucking great as afternoons go..." He tries to make it light, doesn't want to show the other men how jumpy he is.

They all take a sip of their beers in silence.

"So Jackass not joining the party?" Signs to a young cutie in super short shorts and a hot pink halter-neck top to give him whatever his friends are having. Taking time to give her a little wink to speed things up.

More uncomfortable silence, a hushed kind of nervousness, stultifying and insufferable. They must all know about the stupid fight. God only knows what lies Jack has spread around. Has probably made it sound as if he was single-handedly to blame. Though come to think of it, perhaps he was. Consciously goading Jack on. Hadn't been able to resist.

"So… what've you boys been up to?" rests his lower arms on the table, leaning against it to glare at them, one after another, around the table.

"Yeah… well, I got some cash for you guys. So you can get out of here." Of course he does. Of course.

"So that's the plan, I escort our young fugitive out of this fucking paradise… and then what?"

"Yeah, dude, you hang tight for a while until we get things together. Then we'll meet up somewhere." Hurley sounds almost enthusiastic at the prospect of this little revisit to the island. He doesn't get it.

"So ya'll still planning on a little holiday cruise back to craphole island then?"

"Yeah, yeah of course. Changed your mind?"

"Matter of fact, I have."

"Dude, that's awesome!" And Hurley looks so ridiculously happy he just wants to smack him.

"Yeah, ain't it fucking great," he says dryly. "But the other thing still standing._ She_ ain't going back gentlemen. An' ya'll ain't gonna' let her."

"Seems like you've got it all figured out Boss," Miles spits out the 'boss'. "What do you suggest we do next?"

"We're gonna' set her up somewhere safe. And then I'll meet up with you. Nobody's contacting her directly. That clear?"

"Why?"

"She ain't gonna' die on some stupid rock full of smoke-monsters and idiots, not if I'm around to stop it."

"Yeah, of course, playing the hero now," Miles grumbles down his beer glass. And he pretends not to hear. No point in it. Miles is upset with him and he has all the right in the world to blame him for the thing with Claire. He could have stopped it. Would have, had he not had his head so far up his own ass.

Before they part, Henry sticks a brown envelop in his hand, squeezing his arm lightly before he lets go. Some kind of secret sleuth sign or hell knows what he means with it. Has no time to think about it now.

Hurley waits behind as the other two men make their way out through the entrance.

"Sawyer… take this. You gonna' need it."

A big fat envelop, so swollen the sides almost give way, is pressed into his hand. He knows what this is. Hurley's goddamn money. And he ain't the most honest man on earth, but it's humiliating to just receive a hand-out like this.

"No, Buddy-boy. I ain't taking it." Tries to push it back on Hurley who sidesteps him and draws his hands away.

"No. It's for her. You hang onto it for her. Take care of her."

His pride a little injured but he isn't a complete idiot. Even he can see that they're going to need some cash. And frankly, his own funds are dwindling quickly. Has to get onto sniffing up another job soon enough.

"Thanks Hugo." Stuffs the envelop inside the waistband of his denims. Covering up with his shirt. The money making it bulge unattractively. The man is a fucking saint, or a damn fool. Depending on how you see it.

"Why are ya' doing it? Helping her?"

"'Cause dude, she's a friend… and because… well, she expects nothing from anybody. Makes you wanna'… yeah, you know…"

And it sounds soppy as hell. Hurley even blushes, his big round cheeks a sweet red tint. Making him wonder again whether it's more than that, if the big guy has the hots for her. But it doesn't matter, doesn't matter one bit. Hell, he can't blame anyone for loving her, though he definitely pities each and everyone who does.

"Want a date mister?" The little hottie in the pink top sidles up to him by the door. And he thinks of _her_ in that ugly hotel, probably waiting for him. Shakes his head to the young girl.

"Nah, honey. I'm all good." Because he is. In spite of the fact that he is now officially on the run with a wanted felon. He's all good. Has everything he ever wanted waiting for him in that shabby little hotel room. _Everything._

Hell, his mouth waters as he pictures her. How she'll be once he get back to her. Once he gets her undressed and relaxed, all warm and cuddly in that dodgy old room. Soon. _Soon. _

If only it weren't for Henry's envelop, burning in is hand.

* * *

He drags himself along.

Tired, dog-tired as he makes his way down the alarmingly busy street. It's a mental exhaustion more than a physical one. The kind of fatigue that comes from realizing what a miserable fucked-up human being you are. His knuckles raw, bloodied. The muscles of his arms aching.

_Fuck._

Self loathing growing for every step taking him closer and closer to the hotel. Shit.

_This is who he is._

People bar-hopping, the deafening music streaming out of different places, mixing in a headache-inducing chaos. The tourists younger here than around their little house in Sanur. Brightly pastel-clad young girls dressed in the shortest skirts, skin tanned a dark orange brown. Hair bleached into chewing gum texture. The boys loud and boisterous, drunk and nasty. The atmosphere restless and slightly aggressive, local hawkers hanging in the heels of the throngs of dumb tourists. Hoping to take advantage of some inebriated sucker.

He'd left _'Eddie's'_ not more than sixty minutes earlier and as soon as he'd exited out on the busy main streets, he'd ripped the brown envelop right open. _And fuck_. Fuck. He'd wished he'd not received it at all. Had asked for the information, sure. But once he'd had it in his hand, he hadn't wanted it anymore. Knowing exactly what he'd have to do. What's in his blood. The violence that is innate to him. Whether he chooses to admit to it or not.

The beautiful man. His golden eyes and that flawless profile. He hadn't been hard to find. He'd been in exactly the spot Henry's report had said he'd be. And Sawyer might not have faith in many things. But in this he does. The simple cruel logic of an 'eye for an eye'. A man's god-given right to revenge, to right a wrong.

But as old as he is, never, _never _before has he been remotely inclined to extract justice on behalf of another person.

_Until now. _Until tonight. For her, all for her.

He'd been entirely unprepared for it. How the rage had blinded him to all else. _Kate._ A wrath born from an inexplicable protectiveness, his misguided fucked-up love for her.

_But she'd trusted this man. _

Trusted him like she'd probably trusted a long line of losers. Each and every one screwing her over in their own special way. The cries of the man, on the ground. His face a bloody mess. Arms trying to shield, protect from the onslaught of pounding fists. The vicious rhythm.

_Why? Why? Why? Why the fuck did you do it? Why? _A '_why_' for every time knuckles met face.

Had expected the answer to be money. It's always money. At the root of everything. Money. Money. Money. But this, moaned there somewhere among pleads for mercy. It has him sick. Sick with himself.

Danan. Widmore's son.

He might have been able to justify it, his barbaric cruelty, had it been for money. How he'd lost all control. But he'd almost killed a man for doing his father's bidding. Loyalty, the bonds that tie you tighter than anything. A favor of a son to a father. Doesn't wipe the slate clean, it's no excuse for what he did to Kate, to Claire and the kid. But it explains it. By far a nobler motivation than money.

* * *

He'd walked away in a daze. Had enough presence to pick out the exit, set his sight on it while he'd… _he doesn't want to think of it_. Doesn't want to think of the man that he can be. Coming _this_ close to killing another person, just out of anger. Sixty minutes is all that it took for him to sink down to the hideous bottom scrape of himself. The grisly ugliness within him. How the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It scares him, disgusts him. _This._ Who he is. Like father like son. He is a killer at heart, same as Danan is a scheming, conniving bastard just like _his_ father.

So he limps along the crappy sidewalk, big gaping holes threatening to swallow the most drunken and careless up. Giggle and yapping all around him. The world swirling in a flash of lights and people that he isn't part of. Just passing through.

He buys himself shoes in a little boutique, prices clearly for tourists with fat wallets and penchant for the posh. He figures that he ought to get her a pair too. Knows fuck all about lady shoes and sizes but he figures that nothing can be worse than those stupid Mickey Mouse kiddie sandals. Buys her a pair that reminds him of the red ones she'd been wearing, the ones she'd destroyed that night, in the rain. Such a mundane thing. But it blots out his desperation a little. _He can be a good man. _Has to be.

_For her._

Stops at a noisy 24 hour convenience store to buy cigarettes. Decides on a whim to pick up some food and wine too. Some local wine that looks like strawberry lemonade_. _Wants to do something for her. _Something normal_. A primitive longing to provide for her. _Make her happy. _The caveman within. Bringing home the bacon after he's almost bludgeoned the man who betrayed her to death.

Stops in the overgrown garden, just outside the little ugly bungalow. The desire to bring a little beauty into the ugliness inside.

He's waited so long for this. For her to come around. It's so late and he can't wait. _Needs her._ Needs to get back to being at least that illusion of a good man. Not the kind that makes minced meat out of another man's face. Not the beast that keeps hammering his fists into another human being even when the crunching of capillaries make him want to throw up.

_Not that kind of man._

And he has killed before. Has shot at least one innocent man. But never before has he attacked a virtually defenceless man. Hit him until he'd lied on the floor, his beautiful face crimson red as if painted with blood. He has to be better than this. It has to be beautiful with her. Has to be tender and sweet and gentle.

Ripping off a little twig from the flowering jasmine tree as he passes it. Night jasmine, giving off a heady heavy scent. Wants to push away the memory of his own revolting viciousness. _Wants nothing,_ nothing but to make love to her. Consume her. Fill himself up on her. Who knows how long it will last, a few hours, a few days? She's a fickle, skittish girl. And he's a clumsy, blundering bastard. One step in the wrong direction and she'll be off. But how do you fill yourself up on someone. How do you take enough to last you a lifetime, even if you have to do without her?

He's waited for her for so long.

Wants the swooning, the romance, the right to be a complete cliché', wants to be able to pop out a little soppy 'I love you too'. And he doesn't care that the setting isn't right. That he's a fucked-up human being that doesn't deserve her. That the hotel is seedy, the room disgusting, the timing is wrong or that he ought to know better. Wants something beautiful. _With her. _Wants to erase who he was tonight. What he did. Wants to hide his face between her breast. Kiss away the echo of the other man's screams.

* * *

Comes in with his arms full and his heart thumping wildly. Wine and food and the flowers stuck in there somewhere. Wanting nothing complicated. Just her. _Just her and him. She sits in the armchair, knees drawn up. It's way past midnight. And she just sits there, staring at the television. Big old fashioned remote in her hand, zapping, zapping. Catatonic. They don't say anything. He dumps everything on one of the twin beds._

The way she looks up suddenly, glancing at him across the room, all clear eyed hopefulness and expectancy. Wants to go to her but something makes him doubt himself. The way she looks at him, as if he were someone to wait up for. As if he were worth falling in love with.

Wavering now, faced with her. That impossible faith she seems to have in him. He had wanted so much for her, for him, for the two of them. He had wanted to show her how a man can be. Gentle, warm and safe. Someone she could sleep next to, without fear, without having to curl up in a protective little ball. Had wanted to be someone else for her. Someone to trust.

Not this man.

_A man to be ashamed of._

* * *

It's late, and she doesn't even want to know how late. He's been gone for hours . She's been waiting and waiting. Alone with her thoughts, with her fears. Logic and reason making their way into her mind, settling there. She can't ask this of him. That he should run with her. She can't make him rootless, force him to drift along with her. She has nothing to offer.

_Nothing_.

The way he just shows up. Just like that. And she doesn't know what to make of it. Doesn't even say hallo. Jaw clenched, razor sharp. Eyes anxious, fleeing her. Blood on his shirt, a wide dark smear of it, splatter around the shoulder, making her panic. Almost gasps when she notices his hands. Connecting the dots quickly, the raw red fists and the streak of blood on his shirt.

_He's been in a fight._

And he doesn't want to talk about it, that much is obvious. She wants to ask, but she isn't sure she wants to know. The only person she can imagine he'd want to beat to a pulp is Jack. Still it just doesn't fit. Him going back to the house, only to pummel Jack so hard the skin of his knuckles splits over the bone. Then again, it'd go quite well with the lip that Jack had given him earlier today.

He tosses a pile of stuff on one of the beds, a bunch of plastic bags taking up a large part of the gross bedspread. A twig with leaves and little white flowers bizarrely stuck into the mess of plastic bags. He disappears into the bathroom. Hardly looks at her. Doesn't really acknowledge her at all. She hears the water flowing from within there. Figures he's taking a bath, washes off the blood, cleans up his wounds. Maybe when he comes out, perhaps he'll say something.

Maybe it was a mistake. _To tell him. _And she wonders if he's regretting this. _Her._ Being here. Perhaps he doesn't know how to pull out now. _How to leave her. _How to let her go.

Expects him to come out again, wet and clean and beautiful, smelling of soap and hesitation. Maybe he'll come to her. Perhaps he'll lean down and wind his hands into her hair, tug her face to his, make everything right again. Then again, maybe they'll just go to sleep, silent, divided by her words. It's too late, and there really isn't much else to say.

_There is so much to say._

Hears the pouring water and the panic takes over. The impulse. What comes naturally to her.

_Flee. Run from this_.

She has no right to make her screwed-up life his responsibility. Looks around the room. There is nothing there to bring. His money is in his jeans. She has nothing. Stands in the middle of the room. The stupid plastic sandals on her feet. _Run Kate. _Hesitating between disappearing out into the tropical night out there or staying here, letting herself weight him down.

_Run. Away from this. _Let him find happiness somewhere else.

Her hand already on the handle. Holds her breath as she pushes it down. _Out. Leave. _

_Let go._

The moist night of Bali caressing her skin. Warm and humid. Crickets making a racket, frogs singing somewhere. A choir of them. The lump in her throat exploding, and she feels the tears pricking under her eyelids, forcing their way through. Already stepping onto the stone path leading her away. From him

The shuffle of feet behind her, so fast. A huffed breath and an iron grip around her upper arm. His chest solid against her back.

"Ain't no way you're leaving... Not like this you're not."

And it's a relief more than anything, the way arms are wrapped around the other's body. They stumble like a drunk crab, sideways, whichever which way, towards the ugly bungalow. Back across the luscious hotel garden, pavement stones slippery and tricky, a fine spray of rain against their faces. His warm body, hips slamming against hers, and she swears he actually takes the time to lean down and sniff her hair. Every second it takes is one second too much. How they stagger, drag each other back. Back into the air conditioned chill of the depressing hotel room. Beautiful now. Because of them, how they are tonight.

_Open. Defenceless._

If this is love, it's frightening what it does to you. Strips away every layer of protection, leaves you bare and naked. Easy to hurt, easier yet to humiliate.

Who tugs at who, and how they end up like they do, she has no idea. Inside the room. They barely have time to close the door before they collapse in a pile right there inside. She sees him lift his foot up to boot it shut, already lying down. She on top of him and then his strong hands that force her head down so that her nose is shoved into the crook of his neck. Fingers spread across the back of her skull. Lips against her hair. A desperate grip around her, saying the strangest things.

"I ain't a good person Freckles..."

"Neither am I…"

No games. Nothing but the cruel truth stripped of all bullshit. She pushes up, away from him. Wants to look at the man beneath her. But he does the weirdest thing. Draws his large beautiful hands across his face. Covers his eyes. Like a little boy, imagining he's invisible because he can't see anything himself.

"James…" she says gingerly, putting her own hands on top of his. And there is no reaction. He doesn't let her remove them. Doesn't let her see his face. Just lies there, the only thing visible, his mouth. Thin and hard. And she is filled with dread as she considers the absurdly remote possibility of a crying Sawyer on the floor underneath her.

Does the only thing she knows. Anything is better than this. Bends away hands, placing them on her own waist, under the t-shirt. He just hugs her close, like she is a doll. His arms wound tightly around her waist rolling her around so that his heavy bulk comes to rest on top of her.

"I… almost… killed him,"he whispers against her neck. She struggles to push him away, up. Wants to see his face because she doesn't understand what he's saying. Not a word.

"What, _what _are you talking about? Killed who?"

"Him. Danan." Hoarse and throaty. He moves down so that his head lies on her chest. Pushes his face against her, his mouth somewhere in between her breasts, warm and humid through the cotton of the t-shirt.

"You found him…. How? Where?"

"I almost killed him tonight Kate."

And she understands this part. The having to shield your face because you are too ashamed to let someone see it. She lets him hide there, by her breasts. His breath hot and agonizingly sad through the shirt.

"Sch…But you didn't… " she whispers, mostly to reassure herself.

"Only because I didn't have time… I would've, would've killed him." The strumming of his voice when she smoothes his hair away from his forehead. Finding it hard not to stop breathing all together.

She rocks him slightly, rolling sideways, the best she can with his weight across her. Because that's what she does. That's how she comforts. Knows nothing else but the simple physical part of this. How the swaying movement somehow can still a sorrow, how a 'schush' can make you feel safe. Like a child.

And in the middle of this. He lifts his head to pull the lower edge of her t-shirt up, just enough. Because he's a man and not a child. And they, they were always like this together, from the very start. _Carnal creatures_. Finding solace in the physical. His lips skimming her skin until they find the tip through her cotton bra. Draws down the cup with soft fingertips. Not the kind of fingers that could kill a man. The primal comfort of a breast. So fundamental, so indisputably safe. _Skin against skin._

"I'm a shitty human being Kate," voice rasping against her skin. An odd kind of confession. Startling in it's simplicity. His stringy blond hair beneath her nose. Inhales his scent as he sweeps his palms upwards. At first a little hesitant, hushing her skin, shoving the t-shirt higher, fingers whispering against her rib cage.

"Me too."

He lifts his face up to look at her. Searching for something, for forgiveness, absolution maybe. Something she doesn't have the power to give him. His chin against her chestbone. Heavy and a little hard.

"You and me Freckles, it won't end well…" And she knows this already. No need for him to say it. His voice that cracks a little. And it definitely doesn't sound like him. No teasing, no sleazy insinuation. Even his accent is different. Plain and simple. Honest.

"No, no it won't," she says quietly and it doesn't sound like her either. The relief of being back here with him. Where she should be. There is no other way, nothing else she can do. His fingers stroking her cheek, outlining her lips. Doesn't understand how she'd thought she could just walk out on him. The foolishness of it. Impossible to just leave him behind. He's under her skin. Inside of her already.

He gets up, pulls her up with him and they end up standing like that. Slightly more dignified than lying in a pile of limbs on the floor. Hearts racing in unison. His hands reaching up wrapping around her cheeks, large and decisive as he pulls her face up to his. Huffs of balmy air as he moves his lips across her skin.

"But hell… I've waited too damn long for this... for you… " Nabs at her upper lip, almost playfully but she can't quite gauge his mood when he's like this. "It should be easy… you and me…"

Kisses her, softly, full on. And she thinks that his lip must hurt, but he doesn't seem to care. His eyes sliding shut, kiss deepening. His palms that abandon her face, accelerate their flow, smoothing down her sides, grappling her buttocks through the jeans, tugging her closer. The faint smell of liquorice from him.

Her own voice.

"Yeah, it should."

And maybe it's not easy. Nearly impossible. How two negative forces are drawn together. But the way lips come together in spite of everything, defying all laws of physics. The impossible way in which fears can be mollified by kisses and barriers can be thawed by skin.

Him and her, an aberration of nature.

Just as it ought to be.

* * *

_Leave a review if you feel like it. They are always appreciated, in whatever shape they come._


	28. Another morning

_Thank you so much for reading, and for the reviews! I was so insecure about the last chapter (like I always am) and you all are so incredibly nice about it. _

_This chapter is a bit all over the place but it's all leading somewhere... Promise. And just for those that might wonder, the way it looks now, I think I have three or four chapters left (I know, I keep pushing this forward, postponing, adding on, but I am really enjoying writing this and I don't know what I will do with myself afterwards... :)_

_Rated M for language and for sexual content (quite a bit)._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it is._

* * *

**Another morning**

* * *

An effortless closeness between them. And to think that this is all it took. A little bravery, a tiny bit of courage.

Giving into him. How he is accessible and transparent and it almost breaks her heart, this. _Him and her._ A desperation that gives way to something else. How he can go from zero to hundred and fifty within seconds. How dark can turn light in a blink of an eye. That mercurial quality of his.

And when she starts fumbling with his shirt, too many clothes between them, and too much fabric. He stops her. Draws a fat envelop out from in under it and throws it carelessly on the desk where the TV is.

_Money_. Can't be anything else. Wants to ask him if he's coming. But instead she pushes her hands under his shirt, down to his belt, tries to undo it but her fingers don't really cooperate. Too hurried, too rushed. _Too nervous._ He draws her hands down, away. Twirls her around, a nifty little pirouette so that she ends up back to chest with him. He's back in control again.

"That can wait Freckles…"

Crosses his hands over her stomach with her wrists in a good grip. His jaw resting heavily on her shoulder. Cheek almost touching cheek. Stubble a little prickly against her skin.

"It's so late…" Like a little kid that doesn't get her way. _That's not her. _It's not like she's used to getting what she wants. B_ut oh._ She was so ready to just melt down on that bed with him.

"Yep. It's late but hell, when was the last time you were in a proper bathtub girl?" A tingle of something shooting through her, images of him and her and lots of warm water taking over her mind. She finds herself being propelled ahead of him into the bathroom. The smell of him. Masculine, musky, of tobacco and blood. Could do with a bath himself, but she doesn't mind. It's something that reminds her of the island. This scent of man, unadulterated by cologne and chemicals.

"Sawyer… can we just…"

_Just go to bed._ Just take me. _Take me. _

She can't stand it any longer. Not having him, inside of her. Wants his weight over her. His breath, the way he grunts when he thinks she doesn't notice.

"Nope, get those grubby feet going." Bossy and grumpy now but he doesn't fool her. _Not one bit._ "Look, it's just a goddamn bath alright."

_This._

And no one has ever done this for her before. _No one._ Well at least not since she was old enough to remember. The bathtub, filled to the brim with hot steaming water. Something bubbly and fragrant in it. It takes a while for her to straighten out this alien concept.

"A bath… you made me a bath?"

_He's drawn a bath for her._ Put soap or something in it. Something smelling like flowers and heaven. _For her._

That's what he was doing as she decided to leave, walk out on this, _him_. Such a small thing. But huge and she doesn't get it, where it comes from. _This,_ taking care of her. Treating her as if she were something valuable, someone to be treasured.

He says nothing; still behind her as if he's afraid she'll bolt. A mirror across the wall. And she watches it, as if it's not really her. Some other lucky girl. How he undresses her. The frown on his face, a glower that she doesn't dare question. A residue of whatever happened tonight, with Danan. Not directed towards her.

For her, he tries to be gentle. Tries to be soft.

Smiles at her in the mirror. A little embarrassed and it stuns her. This man, _embarrassed._ The realization. She knows, because for all his experience it's something else with them and he isn't used to it. Not some kind of seduction routine he's pulled on women for the last two decenniums.

Deft fingers that know exactly what they're doing, grazing her back, completely annihilating that notion. And just like that her bra clasp comes undone. He must have unhooked a thousand bras. It can't be all that special anymore. Wonders briefly if anything is, to a man like this. Is there any element left, any moment that still manages to thrill him?

But it doesn't feel routine. His open palms shaving down the length of her arms, forcing the bra straps to give way. She teeters under the soft pads of his fingers running down the curve of her elbows.

And he's gentle; she's quickly learning how a man can be. Clumsy and gruff and all man. But tender and purposely careful with her as if she were made of sugar and could easily pulverize.

His arms reaching around her, his thumbs slipping inside her waistband, ticklish against her belly and his fingers flicking the buttons open. Transfixed by his injured hands. His knuckles bloodied as if he's driven them into a wall. She ought to be cleaning them, putting a band-aid across each and every one of them. Kiss the pain away.

"James… I can undress myself."

"Yeah, but you ain't gonna'"

Takes her by surprise when he glides down, kneeling on the floor as he tugs her jeans down. Really tugs, so that she looses her balance a little, has to brace herself, one hand on his head.

Has her so tightly wound she could liquefy just from the way he hooks his thumbs inside the straps of her underwear and slides them down. She feels them falling to the floor by her feet. He gets up from his crouching position. Fingers coming around to grip her hips. Tips resting right across her hipbones. An effervescent desire in the drab bathroom. Why the hell doesn't he just take her? She's here. _His._

One of his little schemes. An expert of the long drawn out foreplays. Creating an atmosphere, setting the tone. This is how he does it.

"James…"

"Hop in Shortcake," he orders, steadying her by the hand as she does, oddly courteous. The way he checks her out; not quite so gallant. Incorrigible. His unveiled appreciation, eyes sliding from top to toe. _And oh_. Warm water enveloping her. While she sinks down as far as she can, submerging her hair into the water. He stands there, arms folded across his chest, incredibly pleased with himself.

"Looking good there Freckles," Smiles at her, dimples deepening. _Damn him. _Something bright breaking through, light and airy, like the mist lifting off a lake, revealing something real. _Something good._

"Scrub up properly now. Don't forget behind the ears Buttercup."

"Yes sir," she says as wryly as she can and sinks back, into the tub.

He turns around to leave, completely unexpected. Just a bath nothing else, no come-ons, no seduction. Not that he'd need to make a big effort. She's all his now. All his.

"James…" she calls without really wanting to. _No_, that's a lie. She wants to make him stay here with her. _Don't. Don't go._ He stops in his tracks as if this is what he'd had planned right from the start. Sly look over his shoulder at her.

"Stay…please" Leans her chin on the side of the tub. Like a begging puppy. _Shit,_ she even tries to come across as sweet. Not an easy feat when you know you look like you've been roughed up by a pack of thugs. " Please stay Sawyer... Just stay and talk to me…"

Doesn't want to be alone. _Not now_.

"Alright. What do you wanna' talk about Pumpkin'?"

Easy as that, he turns right back around.

"Nothing… just, sit here, okay?"

_Get undressed. Come, get inside. It's too small but you'll fit. I'll make space for you. _

Wants to caress his hair back from his face. Wants to draw hungry fingertips down the side of his neck, down between his shoulder blades. Feel the muscles on his back under her sprawled out hands. Wants him, inside of her. Smooth and solid.

And it isn't normal how dizzy he makes her, the way he locks his eyes on her as he takes a pew on the closed toilet seat. A proper smirk in place now. As if he knows exactly what she's thinking.

Automatically searching for his cigarettes, the familiar patting down of pockets that always precedes smoking and she feels sorry for him. Knows how he tries not to smoke indoors. _Around her_. He sits there staring at her, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, nostrils flaring, smiling nervously, biting into his bottom lip, shoes sort of tapping the floor. A dark streak of something.

"Can I have one?" she says just to say something, to give him the green light too.

"What? In the bath Sweetcakes?"

"Yeah… is that not allowed?"

"Anything you wish for Princess." He laughs, a deep-throated laughter, but lights it for her, clinched in the corner of his own mouth, taking a step across the floor. Actually squats down, placing the cigarette between her lips. It's silly chivalrous gesture, making her feel like there is suddenly sunshine in the little grubby, austere bathroom. How they are tonight. How a few little words might change everything. How a little courage goes a long way.

_Come,_ she wants to whisper. _Closer._

"Besides…. The water is kind of cold…"

"Oh _is_ it now?" And she knows he'll piss and moan about it and not mean a word. "Maybe 'cause someone had to skadooble out of here like a bat out of hell, making me run across half of Bali to catch up."

Leans down to fiddle around with the faucets by her feet. Satisfied with the temperature he turns to her. A little slant of that big solid head, positively angelic the way he meets her eyes. As if he needs her approval.

"Ain't like you can do anything by yourself is it?" A roguish grin clouds the purity, pushing away the peculiar illusion of an innocent Sawyer. He is anything but.

"Nope."

Someone taught him this, modeled this for him. How it's love to fuss over someone.

An echo of someone else in him, an imprint of someone good. Imagines him as a little boy, cared for, loved above all else. Someone doing this for him. The parenting that she never got and that he got so little of. _But enough._ Enough to carry it with him, to teach him how to be. Enough to learn that love can be shown with a click of a tongue, with good-natured scolding.

How he knows this is what she lacks, the exact spot where there is a big gaping hole on her. Deprived of this kind of care, and maybe it's too late. She a grown woman and maybe that ship has sailed. But the way it feels, a profound sense of wellbeing.

His eyes cast down for a moment, only to reattach themselves on her face, a white searing heat. Looking at her as if she means something to him.

"Want some wine too Sugarpops?"

"You brought wine? Yeah… yes, I could really need a glass."

"Me and you both girl."

He gets up, lumbers out. Comes back with a wine bottle, a cheap one with a screw-on cap. He takes the two flecked toothbrush glasses from beside the sink. Rinses them and dries them off with a tissue.

And she can't say she cares much about it, the wine or whether the glass is clean or not. Just the gratification of watching him carry out these simple tasks. Wonders when she'll stop enjoying this, the way his body moves under clothes. The ridges and dips of his back. The way denim stretches around thighs, the way his wrists look like, emerging from sleeves. The neck, sinew and nerves.

He pours her a glass and sticks it in her hand, helping wrap her fingers around it. Hunkers down by the side of the tub.

Sticks his jaw out, resting it on top of his hands on the side of the bathtub. Mouth set to poke fun, the row of upper teeth visible beneath his upper lip. His eyes on her. Summertime, she thinks. That look of his conjuring up disconnected images of a sultry South. Skin glossy from sweat and his back bare, chopping wood. Mixed with something from the island, before she'd known. This is who she wants. How three little words can put her completely at his mercy. He has the upper hand now. _Can do what he wants with her._

_"Hey…."  
_

"Hey yourself…"

"So…that was some scare huh?" An artificial cockiness about him. It's all pretend. She knows it. Can feel him vibrate underneath, needy and insecure. How he wants her but not just for that. Want so much more. Hence inexplicable stunts like drawing a bath, buying her wine and lightning up a cigarette. As if he's trying to show her, how he'd take care of her.

"What happens now?" she says quietly

"Why don't you tell me Peanut…?" he says and the twang of his voice has her heart thumping so hard she half expects it to cause waves in the bathwater. Takes the cigarette back from her, almost burned down to the filter. Drags deeply before he stubs it out. From what she can tell, against the floor.

Impulsive, volatile. Suddenly reaches forward, almost making her stop breathing and takes her half full glass from her too, disposes of it on the bathroom floor. Empty handed and fidgety now. She fights her natural bashfulness. Tries not to cover herself and instead meets his stare full on. Watches how he melts, affection tightly linked to the physical. How something starts simmering. The way they are. Physical creatures.

A quick nervous lick of his lips as if he's got a plate-full of barbecue sauce covered prime ribs in front of him. She casts a glance down too, trying to see what he sees and is unable to feel anything else than an instinctive shame.

The water so low now, all that should be hidden under the surface peaks through. Appearing somewhat obscene like this. The tips of her breasts taut like little pointy pink islands. Her belly like a softer larger white dune. Her hip bones jutting and between her thighs, her mound breaking the surface, dark hair, wet and glossy like a seal pup. He hovers there over the edge of the bathtub, clearly enjoying himself. She pulls her knees up a little, tries to shield herself from him. Too naked and why is he not doing anything about it?

Just feasting his eyes on her, making her glow under his stare. The way he squints at her, a smile definitely growing as if he's deciding whether to eat her with a serving of whipped cream or without. While she lies there acutely aware of the water level sinking second by second.

Her hands finally unable to resist any longer, drawn down to cover her nakedness. And it takes nothing more for him to reach over the bathtub and drive a hand around her neck cradling the back of her head meeting her half way. An impossible angle, stretching him to the brink of falling over, but nothing stopping him and she can't believe how eager her own hands are, forgetting to be timid. Forgetting to cover up. The way they round the nape of his neck and compelling him to bring his face down towards her. _Hard._

_The kiss._

The taste of tobacco on his lips, sweet and spicy. The stubble above his cupid's bow, scuffing her skin. His chin, like sandpaper in beautiful contract to the softness of his mouth. And they have kissed many times before. But not like this. Never like this. Shy and needy at the same time. Nudging each other, only to pull apart, nose against nose to brace themselves. Take courage. It's frightening. _This._

"Why this Sawyer… the bath, the wine, everything... " How she can't hold it back. Wants something real with him. Something honest.

"I wanna'… I reckon it's you and me and…" he gets nowhere further. She knows what would have come next. What he leaves unsaid. _Wants it to be special._ And she might have laughed at that ridiculous notion, had it not been _him_. Had she not been sure of his sincerity. She coaxes him down again. His lips tasting like a promise, like tomorrow might actually be alright for them. Unembellished. _Unvarnished. _This thing between them. And it's unsophisticated and raw in its newness. New and shaky. This, not having to hide. Not having to pretend. Difficult too, they're both so used to cowering behind masks.

But he knows her, like no one else. She can taste it in the way he kisses. An acceptance, of what she is, what ugly things lurk inside. What a failure she is. How her body doesn't work like it should. Not a real woman.

And he doesn't seem to care. Wants her anyway.

The rough warmth of his tongue against hers, his mouth and that way he's got, the kissing brought to an art form. Slow, fast, hot, shallow, fierce, gentle. And how a kiss can cause a little tingle of the lips to grow into a full-blown tremble, can cause her toes to curl above the water surface. The whole evening spent in doubt in questioning her sanity.

But there are no secrets here. Now. _No doubt._

And she drowns in him, lets him lure her down into the exhilarating depths he commands. Where scarlet is scarlet and a kiss can make your chest ache. A lusty surge that makes its way down through her, down, _down, down_. Strong and unstoppable. Making her long for his fingers, his hands on her. Willing him to let go of her neck, move down.

_Touch her._

But that's when he breaks the kiss off, draws back from her. Hangs on the rim of the tub, crouching on the floor beside it. His chin on his arm, resting on the edge of it. Gazing at her, head cocked to the side and his lids a little lazy, that sleepy sensual look about him. Bedroom eyes by definition, making her mouth dry and other places another kind of wet than what the water provides.

His other arm dangles casually over the bathtub, hand playfully stroking, wiggling in the water. Pendulum, back and forward. His fingertips precariously close to touching, dipping into the water near her hipbone. And he can do anything he wants with her now.

This is how he does it. How he gets under your skin, turns the thermostat on, makes the room vibrate with his sexual energy. A fusion between hardened hotheaded experience and crisply fragile sweetness. A die-hard romantic buried somewhere under layers of cynicism and irony.

"Well ain't you just something…." His voice like velvety smoke, encircling her, caressing her. Eyes peering at her there in the water. Pursing his lips, looking wonderfully innocent and casual all of a sudden. The fingers of his left hand drawn back and forward, making stripes in the water as they pass dangerously close by her hipbone.

Doesn't know what hits her before he's clasped a hand around her arm and coaxed her up, out of the tub, dripping wet, pressed against him

"Don't you just scrub up nicely?" Cold now, out of the water, but soon she has his arms around her rubbing her warm. Slick hands, quick as a flash, caressing her down to her ass and up again over the sides of her breasts, His thumbs drawn softly across her nipples, fingers sprawled against her rib cage. Drapes a bath-towel around her and gives her a big bear hug. That unparagoned combination of sensuality and comfort.

"See, all nice and clean…"

"Sawyer..." She feels awkward now. Out of the water. Unsure of what to do next, not certain what he wants. Trying to step away from him but he has her in a firm grip. Hands wrapped around her ass.

"No, come here… " he mumbles, and it's as if someone has stricken a match, thrown it in a puddle of gasoline the way the fire spreads. . His hand forcefully thrust through sopping wet hair. His lips against the base of her throat. And he's eager now, in a breathless hurry. No time to loose.

"The bed," he whispers hoarsely. Like he's lost his vocabulary. Can only produce a few coherent words. And it takes all they've got to make it the few steps outside, into the room. The bed, the way he rips away the disgusting bedcover. Tussles her down with him. The towel opened as if there is something valuable within. Gliding down her stomach, lips warm and sublime.

And then it all just grinds to a halt.

"Hey…. I just remembered…" Drawing apart from her, getting up. _No. No. No._ "Got something… for you."

His eyes confounding her, lightning up like it's Christmas morning, a little out of place as he digs around in a plastic bag pulling out what looks like a shoebox. An uncorrupted happiness shoving away the clamorous frenzy of him.

She opens the lid of the box, a little uncomfortable, uneasy the way he stares at her. As if he expects a rattlesnake to come jumping out of it. The shoes. Red, beautifully simple espadrilles. The sort of straw covered wedge she'd had on her old ones. And just this. That he'd remember. That he'd gone through the trouble.

"Didn't know your size… " The edges of his mouth curling up in a little uncertain, expectant smile, looking at her under a shock of hair. His shirt stained dark on the front from her, from the bath water.

"You got shoes?"

"Yeah, well… Figured it ain't helping with you waddling around in those stupid sandals like a goddamn duck if you're supposed to be on the run."

"You brought me shoes?" Still shaking her head at this farfetched notion.

"Yeah, well keep your hair on… It's only a pair of goddamn shoes."

She can picture him, blundering into a shoe shop, confused and lost, randomly pointing out the red shoes among hundreds of other. Sweating over getting the right size and type, feeling pretty silly for sure. Macho man buying a dainty pair of red shoes. Much more familiar with the intricacies of female undergarments for sure.

He kneels in front of her as if he's a twisted version of Prince Charming. Lifts her foot up placing it in his lap. A swift caress of her ankle, all the way up to the crook of her knee, hands warm against her skin. And he's so childishly, recklessly happy, she thinks of her nerves unwinding, straightening out. Relaxing.

"Here, gimme' here…"

And he doesn't seem silly now. Right in his element, turning everything into a long flirtatious game. Hunkered down by her feet. Forcing the shoe on. Fingertips running across the arch of her foot, up towards her ankle.

"Christ you've got the weirdest feet girl... "It's a wonder you ain't yellow and quack too."

"Very funny…" she says dryly and pretends to swat him across his skull. She points at the branch resting on top of a bunch of shopping bags that he has pushed down on the tiles beneath the bed.

" By the way, why is there a big old tree branch on the floor?"

He turns his head to look at where she's pointing. And if she didn't know better she would have guessed that he was getting a little pink across his cheeks.

"That… that's just some stupid flowers."

"Is it? Looks like you've broken off a big fat branch from a tree."

He mumbles, grumbles at her feet, something about women and flowers and how the best of efforts always go unrewarded.

"They smell good though…" she ventures, watching him as he tries to hide a smug smile. It's true though, the flowers spread a sweet exotic fragrance, helping blot out the smell of camphor and mould a little.

Helping her put the shoes on, his hands looking clumsy and large the way he tries to tie them up around her ankles. Fooling around with the ribbons, pretending he doesn't know how to make a bow, toying with her. Has her laughing, falling back on the bed, her feet, hanging off the edge. He takes this opportunity to swoop in and the moment his lips touch the inside of her knee, something changes in the air. Something incandescent, luminous. All of their sorrows forgotten for now.

And after that it's so fast, so exhilaratingly impulsive and rushed she can't really say what happens in what sequence. The undressing, messy and clumsy, two pairs of hands trying to remove clothes and barriers with maximum speed and minimal amount of patience. Breathing erratically, clothes, towel, and everything being discarded at a ridiculous speed.

All she knows is that it starts out with him putting on her shoes and ends with him in his birthday suit and she in nothing but her red shoes and a smile. Almost aching with the dizzying euphoria of his skin against hers. When out of the blue he stops their wrestling and tumbling. Hovers over her, holding himself up on his arms above her, an expression that she finds impossible to interpret. Searching her eyes.

"Is something wrong?" she dares whisper afraid to ruin the mood.

"Right now… there ain't nothing wrong." His lips against hers, eyes open. Looking almost cross-eyed trying not to break the eye contact. Light kisses, playful and sultry at the same time. Generous and uninhibited. The way she wishes she could be.

The simplicity of them. When they stop playing games. An intense explosive kind of love. Emotions set free in every which direction.

_Nothing half-hearted about it._

* * *

A hard rapping sound on the door. _Oh shit, oh shit._ He's up first, pulling himself away from her, hoisting himself off her. Crap, he's waited so long for this. The way she lies there, the long humid chocolate waves of her hair spread out all around her face, eyes a little unclear, brimming with lust

_Shit. _Searches on the floor for his underwear, tugging the sheet up around her.

"Fuck, who the fuck at this hour…?" And he's isn't scared, to tell the truth, just pissed. Wanted her clenched around him, almost, almost there. Slips himself into his boxers, rips the door open just enough to put his head through and growl at whoever dares interrupt such a sumptuous encounter.

"Sorry… it's me." The voice, he knows it well. But he can't say he'd ever expected it here. Not now.

"Jack, what the hell?" he says trying to pull the door closed while shoving Jack ahead of him. Sees how the other man tries to catch a glimpse through the crack in the door. Thinking, no hell no. He ain't giving any man the chance to ogle her, lying on the bed still wet from the bath and glorious unclothed. The air outside is warm and balmy compared to the air conditioned coolness inside.

There are some scruffy bamboo chairs outside their little bungalow. A large ashtray almost like a table between them. Smoking more of a rule than an exception here, and the fact that the ashtray is outdoors could be considered highly progressive of the hotel owner.

"Doc, hell you doing here in the middle of the night?" He slumps down in one of the chairs and signs to Jack to do the same but the other man remains standing. His old duffelbag by his feet and a number of shopping bags.

"Sorry, I couldn't make it earlier to Eddie's. Brought your bag and I picked up a few things for her. Figured she doesn't have much… here."

He has to clear his voice to croak out a _'thank you'_. Hands crossed in front of his crotch, feeling like a total ass.

"You didn't have to do that. I've got it…" he says grumpily. _Mine. _Not your concern.

Jack looks fucking glum standing there. Fuck knows he would as well had he caught the two of them like this. Obviously getting it on.

"Your passport is in the bag… It had slipped under the sofa, they didn't look too carefully except in her room."

"Yeah well ain't that fantastic? Now, if you don't mind…" He braces himself against the armrests of the chair but something about Jack stops him from getting up.

"Just… just look after her okay?" The pause that follows, too long for comfort, both men staring at each other. In another time, another world, perhaps they could have been friends. As it is now, they are only united by their common affliction. This illness. Impossible to cure, and god knows he's tried. "You screw up and I'll kill you James."

He'd have snorted and mocked the pathetic state of the poor guy if it weren't for the fact that he doesn't doubt the good doctor's sincerity. It's an entirely different matter whether he'd be capable but he has no reason to believe that Jack isn't being serious.

"I ain't screwing anything up Doc," he says with far more conviction than he has. "I love her."

"I know."

He glares mutely at Jack. Trying to figure out if it's a goddamn trick.

"I just need to talk to her…" he says and before Sawyer has the opportunity to think of a good reason why not, he's knocked gently on the door and stepped inside. Sawyer remains sitting outside in his stupid underwear. Feeling antsy like a jealous husband. Imagining her in there, only wearing that goddamn sheet, probably hugging it up with Jackass. _Damn._ But there is not one damn thing he can do about it without loosing face completely. So he sits out there. Waits. Swatting big fat mosquitoes the size of jumbo jets.

It seems like an eternity before the door opens again, Jack stepping out a little unsteady and glassy eyed. He turns, leaving the bags behind on the ground.

"I better be on my way…" he mumbles. "I guess we'll see each other soon. As soon as the trip is arranged."

"Yeah," Sawyer says sheepishly. Unable to think of anything else.

"I, ehum… I got you a cell phone… figured you might need it." Jack casually points a thumb towards the bags.

"'Course you did. Yeah, well, don't wait by the phone. I reckon we'll be busy hiding from the cops an' all…so." Hears how he sounds. Like a bitchy little girl. Petty and ugly. Jack's being a good fucking guy as usual and it just rubs him the wrong way. Much prefers the fistfights.

Thinks Jack will finally walk off into the darkness when he startles him.

"You know… when we broke up back there… I guess, I couldn't handle it…"

"Handle what!" he says edgily. Wants nothing but to be rid of the damn Doctor. Has a girl in there waiting for him. Butt naked and gorgeous, sticky skin and wet hair. _And she loves him._ Loves. Him. Wants to slide between the sheets, wrap one of her thighs over his hip and fall asleep like that. Maybe wake up in an hour or so, welcoming the insomnia and the restlessness, pleasure her in that lazy slow half conscious way. She is right here, in there waiting for him.

"I couldn't get through to her. I never quite could. I've always thought, that piece of her she kept away from me… It was about you…"

"Look, much as I'd love to stay an' chat about your fuck-ups… I need to catch a few winks before sun-up."

"Yeah, yeah of course. James, I really never meant for any of this… to happen."

He shrugs and fuck, why does he have to have this annoying sympathy for the guy? Feels like a complete failure watching Jack make his way down the walk-path. He ought to be better than this. Has to be, if they're ever going to have a chance.

"Well, guess I'll see you around then!" he hollers after him.

He isn't certain Jack even hears the last part. He makes no sign of it. Just walks on into the lush overgrowth of Bali and disappears.

* * *

Brings the mountain of shopping bags in to her. She has pulled on his large shirt. Buttoning it all the way down. Has no idea what she's wearing underneath. Feeling irate at the thought of her hugging doc like this.

"Here. Some crap from Jackass," he mutters and tosses her the bags. She gets up standing in her knees on the bed. She empties the plastics out there while he sneaks up behind her, sitting down there on the edge of the bed. Amazed at the load of garbage tumbling out of the bags.

_And hell._ Now he wants to kill the guy.

He's thought of _everythin_g. Brought her a few dresses and tops, a pair of jeans that look like they were made for a child and worst of all, a bunch of girly stuff, like a deodorant, make-up and underwear. Has to stifle the urge to snatch them away from her. Lacy stuff; bras in the darkest red, shiny, glossy black things, and even the set that is white ain't nowhere innocent enough.

"So does Jack think you're a nineteenth century Parisian prostitute Sweetpea?" he says holding up the red bra. Already hard at the thought of her wearing it. _No. Fuck it all._

"Don't do that James," she says and he can't. Not when she looks like that.

"Bet old Jack cross-dresses, ain't no way he'd have time to find all this stuff a lonely afternoon in fucking Bali…" he gripes and grouses. Can't help it. Jealousy making him ugly. _Ugly._

"Oh yeah, cause he must be a cross-dresser. There is no way he might have found his way into a mall, that's just _too_ weird.…Come on Sawyer, no need to feel bad about it."

"I ain't feeling bad," he says trying to sound grown-up and masculine but resisting a pout is impossible. Raffles through the other bag.

Hell no! _But hell no! Empties it on the bed too._

"_Fuck _no Freckles, he ain't making you blond. Ain't no way!"

A package of hair-color, a goddamn awful picture of an Asian chick with yellow hair and dumb lifeless eyes. No, ain't no way she's destroying that hair – no way. Must be Jackass idea of a fucking joke. She grabs hold of it.

"Might look good…" _Tease,_ she's a big old tease. "Or these?"

She holds up a pair of over the top nerdy glasses. Large and freakin' round to boot. Must be out of his fucking mind. It just screams disguise, only the rubber nose missing.

"Hell, he might as well have brought you a fake fucking beard. Goddamn moron," he sulks, can't help it. The smug bastard has thought of every fucking thing. Ain't normal.

"Hey…" she creeps closer to him, on all four now. Kittenish. Mocking him for sure but what the heck. He doesn't care, he'll take what he can get." I like my shoes…"

Her arms twined around his neck, standing on her knees in front of him. Nose pushing against his cheek. His hands disappear up under the large shirt, finding. _Nothing_. No goddamn underwear_, nothing._

"You hugged that asshole goodbye dressed like this?"

"Yeah, well… I had the towel wrapped around too. Why? Does it bother you?" Tongue in cheek. Joker-like, goddamn tease that she is.

_Yeah, hell yeah,_ he wants to shout but instead he drops it. Sweeps the stuff off the bed, pretending it was sort of an accident. Still incredulously happy over the shoe remark. That she liked them. Mocking or not. He'll take it.

"Ain't no need for all that junk now... come here an' I'll tell you what I like on you."

He actually manages to make her laugh when he wrestles her down to unbutton the shirt, the white little buttons sliding out of their holes one after another. Effortlessly, as if made for this. For undressing hurriedly while rolling and gasping for air.

"Yeah... that's better, much better."

"Can you help me off with the shoes now?"

"No. Nope, that ain't happening."

She slides away from him, turning the tables. Pushes him down hard against the bed, standing up on her knees, one leg on each side of him. Forming a beautiful upside down V across him.

"Well if you ain't a sight for sore eyes..." Fingertips admiring the outline of those thighs.

"I'll give you a sore eye soon if you don't stop…" she mutters, looking a little uneasy, eyelashes that do their thing, fluttery and saucy at the same time.

_Here she is._

Not a fucking thread on. The view of her flushed and freckled all over it would seem. Bare and tempting right here. In front of him. Like a dewy, luscious fruit waiting to be picked. The shallow indentation that runs down the centre from chest to stomach. Her fleshy little belly. The dark triangle above the junction, her tense thighs extended, stretching in opposite directions.

"Stop what…?" He enjoys this. _Damn,_ how he enjoys this. Her and him. As if they don't have a care in the world. Grabs her around the ass. Letting his fingers sprawl. Enjoying how his hands sink into the softness of her buttocks. How it's not all muscle, is all woman.

His hand roving around, dipping down her stomach. Straying further still. And she is wet, still humid. Could be the bath but he likes to think that it's him. The wetness different, slippery, sexual. Wants to be back on top, wants to control her. Take her.

But he's not in charge tonight. _It's all her._

She struggles with his boxers, lips never leaving his. Sugary and aggressive at the same time. Her obvious impatience making him smile against her lips.

"What's so funny?" she says quietly. He doesn't want to talk. Wants to screw her senseless. Wants to forget. That man he was tonight. That's who he is, under this thin varnish of civilization. That's the creep he is. Almost killed a man.

"Nothing... You."

He shoves her hands away from his underwear and takes care of the undressing himself, bucking his hips as she helps push them down. Clumsily and ardent. Can't get them off fast enough. Encircles him. An awkward caress that shouldn't have him groaning but does nonetheless. And he forces her to let go. Knows he wont' last, not tonight. Not with her.

"Where is it?" she says, startling him.

"What?"

"Protection…?"

"It's in my duffel bag Princess… I'll get it." Jerks his head towards the floor where everything was dumped, making to get up. Regretting having to move her aside. A little surprised too that she'd been the one to bring it up. She'd never worried before and he feels like a bit of a shit for even thinking it, but he resents it a little. He doesn't know why. It's stupid and he know it's a necessity. He's a modern enough man, and he's always been rather religious about protection with his conquests. Only with her. Well, it's different. All different and he finds that the idea of a barrier between them, even a flimsy one such as a rubber. Doesn't sit well with him.

"No. Don't... I'll get it."

And to his surprise, she gets off him and it's worth it, if just for the sight of her ass, the delicate curve from waist to hips. She has a graceful way of moving. Scooting down to where he had dropped his bag. She lifts it up on the foot of the bed. Delicious watching her raffle through his bag. Her breasts bobbing with the furious digging, how her dark hair snakes down around her shoulders and her chest in beautiful contrast to her pale skin. _Impatient too._ The smooth curve down towards her mound and the dark shadow between her thighs. He can almost taste her now.

_Come on. Hurry. Hurry._

"What are you doing?" Annoyed because he is not inside of her yet and he can't wait any longer. He gets up too, to help her find the damn thing before he spontaneously combusts. Reaches her there and draws a condom out from the outer pocket of the duffel bag. But she doesn't seem to notice. Her hand buried inside his bag's main pocket, position frozen like that.

Fishes up something. Lips parted and eyes flittering from him to the bag, and back again.

"You… you went back to get it…?"

_The goddamn blanket. _Perhaps he shouldn't have asked Jack to bring it along. It ain't healthy. Still, he had. _For her._

And he has a difficult time understanding her expression. Doesn't know what this means. Is he out in the cold again? Well, he might well be.

"Yeah…? Well, I ain't the one. I asked Jackass to get it when he went to get my bag."

' _So what?'_ he wants to say. _It's just a goddamn blanket._

She stuffs it down in his bag again. And this look is different, a little predatory a little crazed. The way she throws herself onto him, all naked slick skin. Smelling of soap and desire. And they collapse in a pile, him tumbling backwards onto the bed, her on top. Her grip around his face, clumsy and sweet. Thumbs on his cheeks, fingertips just below his ears. _And the kiss._ It begins as a wet childish full-on smacker but somewhere along the line, it changes. Becomes deeper, more heated, fervent. The sensual push and pull, nudging his tongue with hers, making space.

Tries to be smooth while he attempts to kick away the sheet, kiss her and rip open the goddamn condom wrapper, all at the same time. The stupid plastic wrapper, as if made by steel, _damn it_. No wonder they've named this crap 'Virgin'. Impossible to penetrate. _Ain't anyone getting it on here_. And all the while, her lips driving him wild. Her hands, eager girly hands all over him.

Moving, gliding, coasting along, rushing up his chest over his shoulders, into the small of his back and around again towards his stomach, making him clinch his teeth as she touches him. Soft fingers smoothing over his dick so softly it pisses him off more than it turns him on. She's such a damn tease. Knows this is no way to touch a man. _He's no goddamn kitten for fuck's sake._

And if she was concerned about protection she sure isn't helping now. Isn't giving him a chance. Winded and ungainly but adamant and insistent. Ain't no way a man can roll on a stupid rubber while she's doing what she does.

"Slow down for fuck's sake," he says and she doesn't really, it's just by dumb luck that he manages to get it on at all. Secretly thrilled by her demanding unbridled fervor. She pushes him into the mattress, hard small hands on his shoulders and he can do nothing but obey, and smile at her. Wants to see what happens when the girl is in charge. When she has full reign over him.

Her green eyes on him, makes him think of the jungle. Wild and fertile. _He wants, wants, wants_.

The way she glides over him, a slow mesmerizing pace. How she sinks down on him, little by little until he could just cry. The intense pleasure of her. _Here. With him. _The vision of her with that tousled hair, flowing over shoulders, swinging down like a flimsy curtain across her breasts. Loves how she moves when she brings herself on. Chin lowered a little, eyes intense and frighteningly honest. Lips open as if to say it. Wants to hear her say it again. _Like this._

_Love you. _He thinks it. Hard. Trying to transmit the words to her without a sound.

He tangles his hands in her hair, winds them into the messy tresses. Looses himself in her, somewhere between that birthmark, low, below her belly button and the splatter of freckles across her chest. Beautiful and fluid the way she just finds the right cadence of ebb and flow. Helps her along because _hell_, he's got a big fat ego but he's man enough to know that certain things just works different for the ladies. _And this specific one_, he'd do anything to make her writhe and tremble under his fingers.

He knows this part. The way the swivel of fingertips, the right pressure, the right rhythm can put color on a girl's cheeks. Can make her throw her chest forward and her ass back, the delicious stretch of stomach, her neck long and lips parted as she breathes like there is no air left in the room. Loves how she clenches her thighs hard around his hips. The beginning of tiny, hardly noticeable shivers down her middle. So subtle he prides himself on picking up on them. Lets her move real slowly, like a sweet lazy wave against him. Hot and slick. Knows she's near when she fixes him with her eyes. Her pupils large and black with pleasure. Lips pursed, that half frown that she has when she concentrates though god knows what the heck she has to concentrate about now.

"Let go baby… just let it go… I've got it... " he wheezes damned if he knows what the fuck he's got, except himself in her heavenly depths. The dark, secret moisture of her wanting him.

A little '_huh_' that has him reeling. Normally not a vocal lover. He loves that he's brought that little sound out of her. Fills him with stupid macho pride. And when her hands across his chest stiffen, fingers almost digging in. She stops herself. Eyes shut tight, mumbling 'oh' and 'you' or something else that sounds like total nonsense. How she tightens around him. Relishing in those sweet ripples of hers that come next.

The irresistible build-up, the surge of heat, but he doesn't want to let go. Not yet. _Not yet._ Holds her still there, eyelids heavy and gasping for air above him. Feels the wave of release at the floodgates. Nothing stopping it now. Not willpower, no swanky technique. And it almost never happens like this. Certainly not to him. That the climax is accompanied by a swollen tender heart and the wish to bury his face in her hair. He is stupid from the sex. Stupid and warm and happy.

_Loves her. _ In a way that Jack ain't ever been capable of. And he reckons she feels something down that line too. For him. To the best of her capabilities. For now he relishes in the physical, how she is sticky and wet and smells like sex mixed with soap. Can't think beyond tomorrow, it seems too far off. The only thing he's sure of is that he's here now. With her.

* * *

Falling to their sides, still connected. He stays inside of her as long as is remotely decent. Doesn't want to loose it. Some kind of bond tonight. The way they lie there afterwards, just looking at each other. Her fingertips mapping out his face, claiming him as her own. So many things to say, promises to make and none of them quite brave enough. Wants to say it too.

_I love you._

Itching in his mouth, wanting to get out, but hell. He can't, not like this, like he's said it a million times before, his cock inside some woman. A 'you're amazing Sawyer' whimpered beside him. It has to be different. _With her._

Toying with her hair, running a strand of it between his fingers. The unruly dark waves turning into proper curls at the ends, not like anyone else's. The length of it, feminine, merges perfectly with the boyishness of her. And then, a big fat growl coming from her stomach. Making them both snort, the awkwardness of it bringing a sense of intimacy between them that perhaps even sex can't.

"You hungry Sweetheart?"

"No. Not at all," she lies and smiles, a little flirtatious. An odd coyness coupled with the fact that he's still inside of her. Forces himself to pull out, a little humiliating and too real, to have to deal with a soggy condom. The disposal and the inevitable clean up. Hating that he has to get up and pee too. Washes himself off quickly in that bathroom, bringing the bag with crackers and snacks back to bed.

_And this. _The sitting next to her in bed, both cross-legged and stark naked. Little curious nipples peeping through the damp dark curls. Eating crackers and some kind of plastic cheese, drinking chocolate milk from little cartoons. Her getting specks of crackers all over her chest that he wipes away not without a certain enthusiasm. Kisses, messy and tasting of cheese and chocolate and _Jayzus_, doesn't know why, but it feels fucking romantic. Crumbs all over the sheets that neither of them can be bothered cleaning away because they are both so sleepy and sated and just sort of end up in a tight embrace. Sawyer kicking down the packages of crackers and tissues on the floor, pulling up the sheet around them.

She's asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow and he can't sleep for shit. Lies there, shifting carefully trying not to bug her. Takes in the sensation of her soft and hard body against him.

_She loves him. Loves him._

The fucked-up perfection of the two of them here. In a run down hovel in Bali's party zone. Happy. A lot happier than he deserves. Useless bastard that he is.

* * *

All night. Not that there are many hours between the time they fell down on that bed until the sun decides to make its way past the horizon. But all night he keeps waking up to feel for her, making sure she is still there. At one point she hooks her thigh over his hip, her head resting heavily on his shoulder. Wants to wake her up, wants to sink into her just like that.

But she sleeps. And he doesn't have the heart to bother her when she looks like this. Lips a little pouty, red and sweet like some kind of exotic fruit. Eyelids fluttering a little, as if she's dreaming. A restless kind of dream. The light from the bedside lamp making her glow. A warm sheen on her skin. Can't help touching her though. Every time he wakes up again, relieved that she is there, all naked and vulnerable, her breast against his ribs. His hands dipping down her waist and then up again. Checking that she is still for real. Not a dream.

_Loves her._ And damn it. He should have told her last night. _Should have_. Only fuck it, it shouldn't be this hard. He's said it uncountable times, when he didn't mean it. Now that he _does, _well it's a whole new ballgame.

He dozes off and on. The first morning rays of a breaking dawn invading the drab room, sieved through ugly peach colored curtains. Setting his skin on fire.

She is still snoring lightly next to him. Nose a little swollen still, she must have hurt it pretty bad. Crazy, crazy girl. And he can't help taking the opportunity to study her, edging the sheet aside. Taking pleasure in the way her thigh muscles stretch, the way her leg rests across him. The little dip in between. The key to her. He's sure it's somewhere there. But you must know the code to gain access. Must know how to worship her, how to make her feel like she has nothing to be ashamed of. That she has the right to let herself go.

_He'll spoil her rotten, she won't go lacking_, he thinks. He'll do what no one's ever done for her. Will take her as she is and then some. _She won't ever want another._

And he knows it's absurd to think like that. But it's not like he has many other redeeming qualities. Nothing else to give.

Her skin, goose bumps on her arm. Makes him stroke his hands up and down it. How her skin shimmers as if someone's covered her in a light dusting of glitter. Can't help the way his mouth waters at the sight of her breasts. The size of small succulent mangoes, but round and full and delicious. The curves, perfect circles, the way they ought not to be, how they move when she breathes. Nipples small and coral pink in the flood of sunlight from the opening in the curtains. Girlish, the coy pink of a woman who's never suckled a baby. And it makes him sad for some reason, looking at the innocence and inexperience of those breasts.

He knows this doesn't make any sense at all. Hell, he ain't looking to be a daddy. But he feels her loss. Maybe understands it a little for the first time, looking at her body. How it's almost exactly the same as it was four years ago. Lean and young. And how that's not a good thing for her.

If there were any justice in the world, she should have been allowed to wear the battle scars, the dark nipples and slightly deflated breasts of someone who's brought a child into the world. It makes him draw his palm down to her belly. Letting his fingers curve against the soft pale flesh there. How her belly has never been allowed to blossom. Never been stretched out of proportion.

Loves her. He feels it now. And it's frightening how it flows through him. Marveling at the thought that at one point, something of him had grown in there. Inside of her.

She stretches then, arms upwards, a parody of a person waking up. A little yawn that she tries to swallow. Making her arch her back and hell, he can't stay quiet and still anymore. Impossible to resist her. All crumpled sleepy warm girl. Bends his head down to kiss the part beneath her ear. Shifting, rolling gently so that she is underneath him. A little wary, doesn't want to freak her out. That time at the barracks, the last time, it lingers at the back of his mind. Still, he is happy, so fucking happy he could just about die now.

"Morning sunshine."

"Mmm… morning…" And she smiles like he's brought her the moon. Breaks up in the widest fucking smile. And there is no need to be wary, no need to worry.

Beautiful. Waking up like this. Like they are suddenly on the same side of a long waging battle. The unfamiliar feeling of being allies. Hands connected, fingers entwining. There is no need to pretend, nothing to fight about. Nothing but her lips, her skin like it belongs against him.

How they were last night, honey and fire, soft and fiery. Turning a corner, putting some of their fears behind them, nearing each other, little by little. The way you'd take small calculated steps to diffuse a bomb. Just to suddenly throw all caution to the wind.

It's a new morning and they're not so frightened anymore. A little nervous, yes. But not so alarmingly scared.

She blinks the sleep away, like something ridiculously cute from a goddamn Disney movie. But how she parts her legs and wraps them around his hips, is anything but cute. It has his blood flowing to certain parts of his body and somehow the sound of an ocean seems deafening in his ears. A memory of something that never happened. He never woke with her like this back then. She'd never stayed the night in his tent.

_But she's here now._ Wrinkling her nose at him, teeth big and rabbity as she grins at him. Knows exactly what she's doing. Making him swallow hard, the way she stirs against him._ And shit. _The tip of him accidentally nudging at her and he tries to steel himself. This won't do. He'll never leave the bed.

"Hey baby, we gotta' get up soon…" A hand lost between her legs canceling out his words. So light, so tentative she shivers, or maybe it's the chill from the air condition blowing directly at them. How she gives out a little '_huff_' and pulls him down for a kiss. And shit, he'd have taken her then and there. But the thought of her here, not safe. Hardly worth a goddamn quickie.

"Yeah…" she whispers. Terms of endearment kissed, stroked and caressed against skin in a new way, gentler and sweeter. Feeling how his pulse picks up. And she angles herself just _so_. _What the fuck is she playing at?_ She'd been so damned concerned about protection last night. And sure enough.

"Do you still have…?"

"Oh fucking hell Kate, we ain't got time for what I wanna' do to you..." he says, voice sliding down into the lower octaves.

"Uhu..." Both of her arms around his neck. Her lips, tempting, like honey. Shit. He's got it so bad.

"Jayzus Freckles, you're a goddamn fugitive and if you haven't noticed it yet; this ain't a honeymoon suite and we ain't vacationers Sweetcheeks, nice as that might've been" Tries to free himself from her arms. Willing his hips not to move against hers. Tantalizing and moist and it'd take almost nothing to go there. She's right here.

He sighs and curses at the fucked-up duty of it all. Has to get her on that bus, on the next ferry. This sure ain't a holiday and they are not free to relax and breathe easy. Comforts himself with the thought, that tonight, it will still be him and her. In some other crappy little hotel somewhere else.

"You have to leave here girl. We have to get you the hell off Bali…"

He sits up, a sudden movement that has her falling back on the pillow. And he knows he shouldn't even look at her, should just get up. Be all business about it. But god, it's fucking hard.

"Yeah, sure," she says as if there is nothing to it. Looking a little hurt. A little rejected, lying there with her hair in dark auburn rivers flowing out all around her face like a sweet innocent version of Medusa. Scrabbling to get up too, drawing the sheet around her. "Of course. Give me five minutes to get ready." Pushes herself off the bed, sheet trailing after her as she tries to wrap it around her. Trying to shield herself now. As if he'd not seen every square inch there is of her. Hadn't studied her from top to toe, meticulously.

"I'll put your stuff back in the plastic bags alright?" he says and starts stuffing down all her things, all those millions of little thoughtful items from the other man.

She turns back quickly grabbing the jeans and a black top from the stockpile of absolutely essential survival gear. _Damn Jack_.

"You ain't gonna' need these are ya'?" he teases, dangling the wine red bra and panties on his little finger. "Going commando...?"

"Just shut up now Sawyer," she whispers yanking them from him. And somehow the warmth is gone. Something's happened the last few minutes, between them, something has nullified last night, everything. And he doesn't understand it.

* * *

She comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later and she weren't kidding. She is damn quick though as far as he can tell, she's done absolutely nothing except perhaps splashed some water on her face and pulled on her clothes. And still. He almost has a heart attack when she stalks out into the bedroom. She looks like a goddamn wet dream. No make-up, a bad case of bed head. Disconcerting how fucking tight the jeans are on her. Her ass pert and round and just perfect and it has him boiling inside.

_What the fuck had Jack been on, getting her pants like that?_

_Damn_. He'd really gone to town with those. Either that or he'd thought he was dressing an underfed elf.

His dick aching as he watches her bend down to put on those shoes and the fact that there is a little heel on them, doesn't exactly help. Has some sympathy for men hanging black bed-sheets around their women, he's pretty darn inclined to do so too right now.

_Fuck._

The way it is she'll turn heads all the way to the end of the world. And they're supposed to be discreet, not draw a darn fan base. As she stands up again, he gives her a little whistle, enough so that she'll turn around, tosses her his old baseball cap.

"Hey catch!"

That gracious, effortless way she's got, her reflexive one-handed catch.

"Here, tuck your goddamn hair in Princess…" tries to stop the stupid drooling over her, makes an effort to yank his denims up, tucking his dumb dick inside. Always the last to cotton on. Ain't gonna' be getting it on anytime soon, that's for sure.

She just shrugs and does what he says and her breasts, impossibly full and round, as she lifts her hands up to push her hair inside the cap. Cleavage clearly visible in her tight v-neck tee. He's guessing it might be courtesy of Jackass too. That red bra must have had some hidden padding or something. _Damn Jack to hell and back._

She makes to turn the handle down.

"Ain't you using some other clothes than that?"

Wants to kvetch and moan and kick up a fuss. _Hell no. This ain't going down. _Not if he's got anything to say about it.

"What? what's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

Everything. _Nothing._

"Just reckon you might need a sweater or a jacket or something'…." Really he just wants to cover that ass up, and her boobs. Everything. They'll be arrested by the moral police if nothing else.

She rolls her eyes as if she's a precocious fourteen-year-old dealing with an old dud of a father.

"It's about 100 degrees out there and you want me to wear a jacket James?" she says, that bone-dry sarcastic voice that she has.

"Yep, yeah, that's exactly what I want young missy," he says and he almost cringes when he hears what crap comes out of his mouth. Raffles around a bit more in his bag, finds a big old sweatshirt he's packed for god knows what reason, a chilly spell in the tropics perhaps.

Steals near her, throwing it around her waist before she has time to react, time to protest. Tying a big old knot with the sleeves across her belly.

"There. Much better."

"You're an ass Sawyer."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he bitches like some middle aged suburban soccer mom. "You'll thank me later when you're not freezing _your_ ass off. Balinese weather can be capricious Honeypie."

"Sure, whatever you say." But she keeps it on and he can breathe again. Watching her make her way out through the door, head bent low, chin against chest almost.

She's scared and so is he to be honest. He's got no idea where he's bringing her yet. Just know they need to get off Bali.

* * *

If she had any courage left, she'd have asked him straight out; _'are you coming?' _But as it is, she's spent it all. Put every last crumb into that stupid 'I love you' yesterday.

He has his duffelbag in his lap, has pulled a cap on his head too, pulled low over his forehead so that his eyes are in total darkness in its shadow.

_Are you coming?_

A quick taxi drive to the Ubung bus terminal. Silence in the taxi. And what is wrong with her? Why had she thought it would all change, after she'd said the words?

His:_ 'you have to leave here girl. We have to get you the hell off Bali.'_

The trepidation growing. Where will it be? Tries to imagine how he'll chose to leave her. At the bus station? Will probably be gentleman enough to get her a ticket, will make sure she's on it, comfortable and safe. A peck on the cheek, eyes that avoids hers. Can already picture him standing there, growing smaller and smaller as the bus drives out from the station.

And now, it all looks different. The night together, all the sweet words whispered, all the love made, a bittersweet goodbye from his part. One last indulgent night.

'_Goodbye'_- Sawyer style… as far as he will go. And she can't say she blames him.

The way his words had sunk in there in the hotel room. Slowly, impossible to digest. _**You.**__' You have to leave'._

You. Not; _we_._ You._

The way he'd packed her things in those plastic bags had confirmed it. He'd even moved Aaron's blanket over to one of them. _He's not coming_. And she knows it's too much to expect from him. She knows that.

Still, she had. So much time wasted.

She wonders where he'll draw the line. Where he'll leave her. Sees him putting the cellular phone that had been among the stuff from Jack, in his pocket.

She is nauseous when he disappears at the busy Denpasar bus terminal. Leaving her there in a jumble of people lugging bags and cardboard boxes on board different buses. She's not out of place with her bag-lady style. Breaks out in a cold sweat when he rejoins her, waving tickets above his head.

God. More than one. It's not over yet. And in a way it makes it worse. This, waiting for the 'goodbye', drawn out and painful.

He ushers her on it ahead of him, making sure his ugly old sweatshirt covers her behind. Hoists their bags up on the shelf above their seats. His duffel and her plastic garbage-like bags. Squashes her in against the window, knees squeezed against the back of the seats in front of them. Packed like sardines.

She looks at the traffic beneath the bus window. How bustling dusty city gives way to greenery and soon they are out of the centre and on their way north. Still morning but the bus is hot and stuffy, the air conditioning coughing and leaking out some kind of smog. Not really helping.

How they are so close and still so separate. Same kind of isolation as in the taxi. For three hours they sit there. He falls asleep sometimes after they get out in the countryside. His head lolling on her shoulder. An irresistible longing to lean back on him, stick her nose against his forehead. His arm warm against hers. His head heavy. And she thinks, what the heck. If this really is goodbye, there is no point in holding back. Enjoying him to the last second. Rests her cheek against his hair. His face reflected in the window in the low morning sun. Boyish, reminding her of him last night.

The landscape outside their window, green and lush, the paddy fields and rice terraces. It had almost been home for a while. Now all that is gone and soon she'll be on her own. Yet another time. The only thing to look forward to, getting back to the island. _Aaron,_ it's enough to miss him. Doesn't need another hole inside of her.

She slumbers for a while too. Wakes up as the bus grinds to a halt, people starting to shuffle off at the Gilimanuk harbor. Without a word he takes all their things. Leaving her empty handed and confused. _Is this it?_ Is he about to do it? Bid his farewell.

Wonders how he'll do it. He seems subdued and too, too quiet now. Like he can't really face it either. Keeps his head down moving through the throngs of people lining up to buy their ferry tickets. He leaves her in charge of the luggage and sets off among the crowd same as at the bus station.

She waits. Jittery and with a heavy sense of foreboding. _He'd not said it back_. Hadn't said he loved her. There had been so many opportunities since yesterday's taxi ride. But he hadn't said it back. Still, she knows he does. She doesn't it. Imagines that this makes it hard on him too. The inevitable separation. His words last night, like a warning.

_It won't end well._ That's what he'd said.

And she can hardly breathe for the way her throat tightens at the thought of him leaving her now. That it was all too little, too late. Not enough for him. And she knows the logic in it. How the hell is he going to be able to go on the run with her? What good will it do, how on earth will they survive together? He's better off staying put with Hugo. Or maybe he's planning something else. Wants to cry at the thought of him returning to the States. But there is nothing she can do.

_Nothing._

Only, suddenly he's there, his large hand at the base of her back.

"You alright? Wanna' catch something to eat before the ferry leaves?"

But she's not hungry. Wouldn't be able to eat now. Not with the large desperate lump wedged in her throat.

"Some coffee maybe…" she mumbles.

"Sure, I'll be right back. Get you a cup of Joe from that bucket-fellow…"

_And the tears._ They are not far away as she watches him, buying coffee from a man in rubber sandals and a farmer's triangular straw hat, toting a huge thermos in a bucket, smiling, obviously joking around with the man They find a bench nearby, drop all their stuff on the ground by their feet and he passes her a glass, steaming hot that she has to place beside her on the seat. He smiles at her, all dimples and seductive crinkling of eyes. And she wants to tell him to stop looking like that. She can't endure it much longer.

Holding his own coffee glass carefully between his fingertips, blowing at it before trying to take a sip. Sets it down on his other side. Too hot to drink.

She can't loose him.

Not now. _She can't._ Panic growing, making her stomach ache, knotted tightly and painfully. Except - all that dissipates when he grasps her hand in hers. His thumb rubbing against her ring finger absentmindedly. His skin is tired, a little gray beneath the eyes. Jaw razor sharp and beautiful. The gash on his lip a little better today. Meets her eyes, like butter cream. Soft and mellow, nodding at her hand in his.

"Why did you let him put a damn ring on your finger Freckles?"

"Don't," she says. Because the way he does it, looking at her like that. As if he's toying with her. And here he is, on his way to put her on a boat away from here. Away from him. He has no right to get into her head. Not now, not after last night.

"Were you… you in love with Jackass?" And he doesn't play fair. This isn't a game at all she realizes. It's unusually candid. An open quiet question. Deserving a proper answer, not a _'shut up'_, not a '_fuck-off'_. An honest answer for an honest question.

"I wanted to be. I thought if I..."

"But you don't want to be…with me?" Cuts her off. That insecure lip biting expression on his face. Thumb still grazing her fingers. "Or are you saying, you'd have taken a fucking ring from _me_?"

She knows this is the time to retreat. Time to run. She can't be having this conversation with him. It's useless. Will lead nowhere. _Why are they even talking about this now? _

"Are you offering James?" She says it scathingly.

And though she knows, _hell_ she knows only too well, it could never work out. Still, a part of her still hopes for a _'yes'_ from him.

It's that little silly girl within, the one she can hardly bear to remember, who might have once believed in happy endings. The one who'd been given a dress, yellow and frilly and poofy. Giddy with the newness of it. Not one to be spoiled. _He_ had given it to her, taken her to the zoo, just the two of them. She'd felt special, had pretended he was her real Daddy. She hadn't known then. He'd called her pretty and had bought her ice cream, as much as she could stomach. She'd thrown up on the way home in his beat-up old truck. A sour stench of vanilla and vomit spreading in the car and for an instant she'd been afraid. How he'd changed in a blink of an eye had become someone else.

_The first glimpse of that other man, behind the mask._ The dream of happy endings, she'd lost it not long after that.

"No hell no. I ain't the marrying sort. You know I can't offer you crap..." And though the words are harsh, the way he says them isn't. He sounds almost sad, his hands that squeezes hers lightly. As if this is some secret code. As if they're a couple.

Only they're not. She doesn't know what they are today, after that. _After last night._ And she can't be angry with him, though she'd certainly welcome that now. Easier than this hopeless overwhelming love for him.

"So…what are we talking about here?" She shivers as he strokes his fingers up on the inside of her wrist. It feels like love. _Why doesn't it sound like it?_

"I just asked if you'd have taken a goddamn ring from _me_ that's all. _If _I had offered."

"Are you asking for a commitment James? Now? Here?" She dares to taunt him a little. Tired of all the underhanded insinuations. Suddenly wants to get it over. Knows that she'll be hopeful, wish for a miracle until the moment he's out of sight.

"So what if I am?" The shifty eyes, looking past her at the guy with his bucket, as if none of this matters. As if he couldn't care less. Lips, pointed and tense.

And she's confused. The '_you have to leave_' it doesn't match up. Doesn't fit. Not with this.

"What's this about James?" He just sits there staring down at his shoes, arms resting against his legs. She doesn't finish her coffee, somehow can not swallow it down. Pours it out in the bushes behind the bench. Rises to return the glass to the coffee vendor. Can't sit still any longer.

Doesn't believe in happy endings. _She doesn't._

* * *

"Thanks for the coffee and for…. For bringing me James," she says and he watches as she starts picking up her packs of plastic bags from the ground. Fumbling, her eyelids clipping, blinking quickly. Her voice a little strangled.

"My pleasure Sweetheart." Something strange about her, since this morning. Something oppressive and he doesn't know how to break through. As if she doesn't want him there, as if she's trying to push him away.

Stands up in front of him, making to untie his sweatshirt around her waist.

"So… you should take this back… Just give me my ticket, I'll be on my way."

He looses his cool completely. _What the hell?_

"Christ Girl!" he flies up. Tries to re-tie the sweater, around her, hands trembling from the emotions welling up. "Are you an imbecile or just pretending to be?

She raises her chin. And he swears her eyes are a bit glossy but mostly, she just looks pissed and hurt. Sweat pearling down her neck, into her cleavage. Would be turned on by it if it weren't for the fact that he's busy being furious with her.

"It depends… Am I an imbecile for thinking you're not coming after all that bullshit this morning? The '_you_ have to go', and '_you_ have to catch a boat'?"

"Yeah, hell _yeah_ you are," he growls pulling the sleeves too tight around her middle making her trip a little. "You really _are _dumb as a doorpost. You seriously thought I'd just screw you and dump your dumb ass on the first fucking boat off the island!"

"You said you…. You didn't _say_ you were coming…" she stutters and _god_, why is it that he always wants to shake her when she is like this? Peeping at him from beneath the stupid baseball cap. And he'd have kissed her stupid mug right there right then if they hadn't had a big audience of kids in full Muslim garb, giggling and ogling them as if they are exotic animals at the zoo.

"You're such a goddamn idiot Kate…" he feels vaguely offended that she'd think so lowly of him. Might have been presumptuous of him but he'd really thought that she'd felt it last night. Even though he hadn't exactly come out and said it straight out. That they are a given now. That there is no way in hell he's just letting her go like that._ Not now._

"You could have said something…" she mutters, looking awkward and embarrassed. A little crabby the way she shuffles her feet in those red shoes. The insecurity of the two of them. And he thinks, this won't work. Won't work like with Juliet. The two of them, fragile and her, especially her. That sense of being unlovable. It ain't gonna' be wiped away easily.

"Well, I'm telling you now." Glaring at her. "Now stop acting like a damn fool so we can get on that old shipwreck and get the _hell_ out of here."

A little sniffle barely audible strangely merging into a snorting kind of giggle, unexpected, like it is when not carefully orchestrated to obtain a certain effect. _When it's real_. And he turns. Clenches her free hand in his, bag in the other, and yanks her with him towards the ferry like a troublesome kid. Him and her. The beginning of something new. Something unknown.

"You ain't getting rid of me that easily. We're not done yet. Not by far."

And when he turns his head to check that she's alright with all of her gear, that grin, the one that can light up the darkest dingiest underworld, it just blasts right through him.

_This is right,_ he thinks. _This can't be wrong._

…..

The ferry ride to Ketapang port on the Javanese side takes a little more than twenty minutes. Twenty minutes where everything changes. It can be felt in the way their fingertips find each other, nudging, sweeping by at every opportunities. Fleeting smiles exchanged. A stolen caress across an unsuspecting cheek, a kiss when no one is looking. Hands that can't be far apart, separation unthinkable. Twenty minutes. And they become something else. A promise of something.

_Mine. _

As the ferry docks on the other side, and they stand by the railing waiting to get off, she has taken the baseball cap off now. Her hair flying wildly around her face. He takes courage, scrapes together every last ounce he's got. The beginning of something good.

"You. And. Me. I ain't leaving you…" Wants to add ever, and even though that's how it feels, he's old enough, jaded enough to know that there is no such thing as forever. But there is here, and there is now. And that will do, that will do fine.

The air is fresh here, morning ocean breeze fondling bare skin. Tickling his neck.

She pushes her forehead against his shoulder. Like an animal, a horse or something, seeking contact. She says something and he imagines it's a repetition… the words jumbled in a different sequence but the same. _You. And. Me._

And he knows they will stumble along. They both have a lot to learn How to be kind, to be tender. How not to be scared.

_That it doesn't always have to hurt._

* * *

_Hope you liked it. Leave a review if you did or if you didn't I appreciate hearing it too :- ). Too much sex? I just thought they sort of deserved it after all they've been through. I hope it wasn't over the top. _

_Note: For anyone who's familiar with this particular trip, Bali-Java, I know the buses are usually afternoon or late evening but this just fitted the story better._


	29. Another land

_Sorry for dropping out of action a little longer than I'd intended. A bout with some unpleasant side effects of real life. _

_Thank you so, so, so much for the response to the last chapters. I get so excited when there's a new review in my inbox, you wouldn't believe it. Do a little happy dance and all, I swear and then I re-read your comments obsessively, trying to take it into account when I write the next chapter._

_This one dwells a bit on the relationship part. Hope you don't find it terribly dull. And oh, it's a bit shorter than the other chapters… just because it seemed good to cut where I did._

_Rated M: For language and mature content…_

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

* * *

**Another land**

* * *

Another bus. But different now after they've crossed the strait between Java and Bali. From green lush jungle to a harder kind of landscape. Barren, infertile, the villages they pass, poor and struggling to stand up. People look harder too. Wiry, resilient people, watchful and suspicious of strangers.

And how they are different too.

The sense of adventure, being here, shaking along in an old bus across the eastern tip of Java. Banyuwangi, Probolinggo, Malang. Foreign unpronounceable names that make them crack up there in their seats, trying to work them around their tongues. His with an exaggerated drawl that has her spluttering her soda all across his shirt. The current sparkling, fizzling between them, exaggerated because they can't really do anything about it. An enforced inhibition breeding rebellion. Fingers that reach, trying to be discreet. Their neighbors curious, a busload of observers following their every move.

They buy snacks through the bus window. Try psyching each other into trying the most peculiar food items they can spot. Rice cakes with sugar on top, chicken feet with a spicy chili sauce, spring rolls and some kind of jelly sweets. The joy of being here with him completely overshadowing the reason why they're on this bus in the first place.

But best of all, how one part of him remains in contact with her the entire time, an arm, a hand, a shoulder, or a thigh. As if he's afraid that she'll go up in smoke otherwise. It shouldn't surprise her that he'd be like this, how physical he is. But it does. The fleeting caresses, down her arms, only to skid up again, in under her hair. Burrowing his nose against her neck. Not kissing, just smelling her. How similar they are. Both like animals, always sniffing, always trying to inhale one another. Fragrance something of comfort, something to hold onto when all other things are shaky, unreliable, fickle.

A mother and a little boy on the seat in front of them. The boy about one, trying to peak over the seat, eyes round and awake, peering at them. Ears sticking out and cheeks round and sweet. Making her ache for Aaron. Wants to reach over and touch the little plump hand on the top of the headrest. At the same time she can't stand watching him.

"It's rude to stare," Sawyer grumbles as if the kid ought to understand his burly half-assed English perfectly. The boy flashes them a dimpled grin of his own, wiping the floor clean with his little two toothed smile.

"Are you seriously telling me you want one of those," he mutters but she can see him melting. Doesn't know why, but it hurts to watch that too. She tells herself it's because she misses Aaron. It has nothing to do with them. This, whatever they are. It's so early yet, they haven't really had time to screw anything up yet. But they will. She knows they will.

"No. I just want Aaron," she says quietly. "Safe," she adds because it's not right that she should 'want' him. He's not hers.

She swallows hard and has to tear her eyes off the little boy. He tires soon and seems to settle in his mother's arms.

When she yawns, Sawyer gestures, open palms towards his lap and she accepts the invite.

"That's right, you might as well follow suit Sweetheart."

His fingers in her hair, tracing the shape of her ear. _Yeah_. It could be so easy. If they never spoke again, maybe they could remain like this. They way he sits there peacefully, she has the perfect view of the underside of his jaw, stubble, thousands of little hair glittering in the sunlight.

_He will break her heart_, she thinks. He will for sure. If she doesn't break his first.

And somehow, that's not enough to make her want to run. Wants the instant gratification of being with him, wants to be careless, stupid and throw caution to the wind. Just for a little while. And a small foolish part of her whispers; it doesn't have to end, _he'll come_. He won't let her go to the island alone.

"You'll be okay Sweetcheeks. I'll watch out for you. Make sure that sharp-toothed little nipper doesn't attack you in your sleep."

She reaches up to touch the tips of his hair, the way it catches the sun.

"You need a haircut."

"Yeah… I'll deal with it later."

"I can do it."

He doesn't answer, just snorts, head bobbing as if he wouldn't dream of letting her near him with a pair of scissors. Or perhaps remembering that other time, way back when. He doesn't look at her but she knows she has his full attention anyway. Falls asleep, lulled by his hand across her forehead, the warmth from his thighs, rough jeans against her cheek.

Belonging. For now.

…..

She must have turned without noticing it. Awakens with her knees drawn up, ass hanging off the seat. Staring at his belt buckle. Unmistakable bulge under her cheek. Scrambles to get up, away, back to sitting upright in her own seat. _Christ._ What the hell is wrong with him? _Here? _

"Seriously Sawyer! she hisses between teeth.

"What?" _Oh_, the picture of innocence.

"That!" she nods at his lap, making eyes at him. "Seriously, _this _turns you on!"

"Well, what the hell do you want from me? You've been lying there rubbing up against me for the last half hour. Not as if I have any control over it… 'sides, you snoring like a goddamn hog ain't such a big old turn-on you know."

"I don't snore." Pretends to be indignant, fighting not to look down into his lap again. The edge of metal buttons visible among sky blue denim, like magnets. The vision of him pushing inside her. All smooth and warm toffee, knows all the tricks in the book. And damn, he sees right through her, drawing his mouth up into a one sided smirk. She turns to look out the bus window, arms crossed over her chest. And she can't wait to get those jeans off him.

"We'll get off this damn bus soon Tigger. Let you get your bounce back..." He says and takes her hand, bending it away from her. Places it on his lap, unfurling it with his thumb. A little gesture that does nothing to calm the yearning for him. She shuts her eyes, because she can't sit staring out the window forever. The rhythmical movement of his thumb inside her palm makes her draw her knees together. God, she's no better than him. Has to keep her wits about her but impossible in his company. And as soon as she starts relaxing, he leans in, his breath blowing strands of hair across her ear, whispering:

"Hang in there, we're getting off at the next stop Princess."

There shouldn't to be anything arousing about it, but it is. Thumb gliding up her wrist, seeming somewhat indecent. Impossible not to look at him. Turns her face towards him and his lips are so close, but off limits. _Later. Later._

'_Soon baby', _he mouths, that pointed upper lip, eyes closing and opening again slowly. Like a cat reassuring you everything is okay. It's hard not to let him get to you when he's like that. Eyes that could melt a glacier and the smile, _the smile_.

Maybe it's the fact that he's hers now. Never thought of a man in those terms before. _Hers._ Never had this possessive streak, not like this. Impatience making it unbearable to wait. Wants to find a hotel, peal him out of denim and cotton, take him. The way he smiles, eyes crinkling up, laughter lines exaggerated in the strong sunlight.

Can't quite believe this. How she just floats along with this, with him. It won't last. And she refuses to look at it now, their situation, breakable and temporary at the best. Wants to forget all the things that should make this impossible. She'll deal with it later, not now when everything is about him. And her.

…

It's past midday when they arrive at Lumajang, a little provincial city on the Eastern part of Java. The sun is straight above them beating down mercilessly. He lifts his bag up, takes her hand in a steady grip and makes his way off the bus with her. This bus station is the same chaotic mess as the previous one.

His large figure in front of her. The back of his shirt stained dark from perspiration and his hair messy and a bit matted. Can't help staring at the way his buttocks move underneath the jeans. God. She's got to get a grip.

"Hey Freckles… I ain't sure but I have a feeling we should just keep moving," he says plowing through the crowded waiting lines.

She can't help it, the disappointment. Can't wait much longer. Needs him, needs to satisfy the unbearable yearning for him, his skin, his hands. But he's right, the further they go, the better. Safer. When she doesn't answer, he casts a glance back at her, that sly wink he throws her.

"Hang in there Sugartop, I'll get you alone soon enough," he smiles and she pretends that he didn't hit the nail on the head. How her heart picks up speed and how her cheeks heat up. His words like a promise and she knows already how it will be. His hand, large and a little slippery squeezing hers. "Come along, I've got an idea,"

…

He finds he's suddenly obsessed with the idea of arranging their own transportation. He argues that they can spare the money and that it'd be a whole lot safer not to have to rely on public transportation, especially seeing as how catching a plane would be impossible for them. Well, for her. Who knows how much coverage Interpol's wanted criminals might get in a place like this?

In any case, he's got a hair-brained dream of a road trip with her. Wants her, alone with him. Not with a straggle of other passenger, watching their every move. Annoying kids staring at them across bus seats, making her eyes sad. Imagines they might talk, might get closer, open up on the way. Nothing like mile after mile of monotonous highway for making people spill the beans.

They walk around town, sweating like pigs in a clay pot. Start out at a car repair shop just around the corner from the bus station. Snoop around best they can, asking where anyone would buy a car without the proper documents. No one speaks English and everyone plays dumb. After hours of searching, they are hooked up with a somewhat sleazy fellow who brings them in his van to a scrap yard. They pay fifteen million Rupiah for a shitty two hundred year old Toyota in a puke brown color that cleverly disguises the rust. But it starts and they really can't afford anything fancy. The guy brings them back to the bus station in it, to show that it's in working order and it's already quite late in the afternoon when they throw their luggage in the backseat.

He sinks into the drivers seat and just about has a heart attack when she slides into the seat next to him and proceeds to untie the damn sweat shirt. It's so hot and her shirt is sticking to her as if someone has dozed her with a bucket of water. And _god_, the way her jeans fit her like a second skin. He could just kick himself for not checking into the nearest hotel. Let some steam off. She looks like she could need it too.

"Sorry Sawyer, I can't wear this any longer. It's stupid."

"It ain't stupid and you ain't walking around like that here girl! You don't wanna' shock the locals. A good bit religious in this neck of the woods ya' know."

…

She suspects that's not his only concern.

"Okay smartass, if you're suddenly so culturally sensitive, what do you suggest I put on? Still a bit miffed that they are here and not lying entangled in clean sheets in some cool hotel room, sated, mellow and sleepy eyed. She gestures towards her crummy plastic bag collection in the back and he smirks as he dives in, rejecting a bunch of tight little t-shirts, muttering something about clothes for an eight-year old and what a sick sonofabitch would pick something like this out.

"Here, _this _you can wear." Proudly shoves a floral dress in her hands. The red-neck in him completely taking over.

"This!" She balks a little because as prude as he's proving to be, she wouldn't have bet on this being his first choice. "I'm pretty sure that's a nightgown Sawyer."

"Yeah, so? It's perfect."

"Perfect for _what_ James?" She holds it up with her index finger and thumb. It's the type of nightie that someone's old bearded aunt would wear. "Is this the way it's going to be now? You're going to get in a hissy fit about everything I wear?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

She struggles with the nightie, pulling it over her top and it snags over head in the tight confines of the car seat and he helps her. Yanks it down and even buttons the frumpy thing all the way up to her throat. It reaches her almost to the knees and that ought to be decent enough for him. Would be nice to get out of those jeans actually. But when she reaches under it to unbutton her jeans, lifting her hips up and wiggling to get out of them, he stops her. Shaking his head.

"No. No way. Those stay '_on' _Sugarbuns."

"Seriously James, what am I? A Bedouin refugee? Next you'll suggest a head scarf!"

"Ain't a bad idea Freckles, glad you mentioned it. We'll get you one later." He looks her up and down, where she sits fuming in the seat next to him. He nods, seemingly tremendously satisfied with the result. "Not too bad. Wouldn't wanna' give some horny old goat a heart attack, would we now?"

"The only horny old goat here, is you," she grumbles and fiddles around with the rearview mirror. Making herself at home in their brand new ride.

"Yeah, got that one right Sugarplum," he drawls and looks at her. "Just thinking how much fun it'll be to get you out of all that stuff later."

Those dimples, she imagines he's had them surgically incised. Doesn't know why on earth she does every damn thing he asks her, but somehow, it feels good to have him fuss about her like this. And she's pretty sure he's enjoying it too. Watching her as she braids her hair, just to get it away from her face. Too hot to let it hang loose.

He glows, literally glows as if someone has put something shiny inside of him, just beneath the skin. His hands that don't stay away. Touches her in one way or another, the whole time. Pretends to help her put on her seat belt, sliding fingers by her arms, her hands. His breath hot on her cheek as he leans over.

….

They hit the road and make their way into the swarm of vehicles. And Lumajang is a relatively small city, but they don't get more than four blocks down the road before Sawyer has to admit defeat. Pulling over on the side of the busy street.

"If we're gonna' kill ourselves, I reckon I'd much rather go down drinking," He scrambles to get out of the drivers seat. Gives the old heap a well-deserved kick for good measure.

"Here, throw me the keys!" she quips." I'll give it a shot."

She all but hops up and down. All excited and cute as a button. Shit, this has to stop. This salivating as he looks at her.

"The hell you are Sweets. I like you well enough, you ain't meeting your maker yet."

He picks up his smokes while glaring at the crowd gathering beside the car. A gang of middle aged men, all in head caps and sarongs, prayer mats thrown casually across shoulders like fancy fashion accessories.

"Aw come on! Don't be such a male chauvinist pig Sawyer… give me here!"

And how could he not. The way she stands there, all gung-ho, bright shiny eyes. Her hair pulled into a braid on her back like a good schoolgirl, the dress over the jeans, hah, just pure genius. Not a curve visible as far as the eye can see.

The old men nod and mumble around the car. Pointing at it, shaking their heads, clicking their tongues in a half mocking-half sympathetic manner. The universal sign for _'you've been had, you miserable son of a bitch'_.

"All we could afford, alright!" he snaps and gives them the kind of look that ought to disperse a pack of rabid dogs, but does nothing for these calm gentlemen.

"Get in already!" She's in the driver's seat and he realizes that it isn't a matter of discussion. Rounds the car and hops in on the passenger side and solemnly hands her the keys.

"Alright then. Show me what you got, you daredevil. My life is in your hands."

She turns the ignition, the whole wreck takes a frog-leap forward, and he almost hits his chin on the dashboard.

"Woops, sorry…"

But five minutes later, it's smooth sailing and he is shaking his head in disbelief. Who'd have thought? Left hand traffic to boot. Trucks, motorbikes, people, bicycles and goddamn chicken. They don't deter her. Tough as old boots, like she's been doing this her whole life. The air conditioning on full blast and it's almost a breathable temperature inside the car now. And he, so miserably head over heels pathetically in love with her. Wants to kiss her. Would have launched himself on her had he not so desperately wanted to live another day, another night with her. See what another morning might bring.

"Tonight Sugar, tonight I wanna' get drunker than a peach orchard boar," he says looking at her next to him in her ridiculous outfit. Yeah, she was probably right. That must be a nightgown. Figure Jack for packing sexy daytime clothes and off-putting aunty-nigthies. He's got brains, gotta' give him that.

"Yeah. Me to."

They leave the worst behind, but even the country road is fraught with danger. Kids and goats and bull carts seemingly coming out of nowhere. They pass a market, teeming with people and creatures.

"Christ, everybody and their uncle on the road today," he mutters because hell, it's a mess.

"What is this Sawyer…?" she says as she makes a sharp swerve to the left, marginally avoiding smashing into an old lady carrying a huge bamboo crate with fruit.

"What Honey?" What is what?" His heart in his throat. Christ. If they don't kill anyone it'll be a miracle. Kids running after the goddamn car, shouting 'londo, londo' and waving happily. Mothers nursing their babies, openly while peddling their vegetables. Plump brown breasts exposed to the world as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And he guesses it is. A tiny bit odd, coupled with the colorful headscarves. The people running hither and dither, bad enough, throw in bikes and motorcycles and a flock of ducks and shit, it's a goddamn circus.

"Cut it out. You know damn well what I'm talking about… You and… me. What is this?"

"It's whatever you want it to be Darling."

_She wants to define them now._ And he could just scream with joy. Maybe they are catching up, coming together. For real. They grind to a halt as an old man herds his livestock across the narrow street. People taking the opportunity to offer their goods running sidelong the car. He buys a bottle of water from a fellow with a black head-cap and teeth crumbling like ancient brickwork.

"Yeah well, jeez, that's really helpful Sawyer!" she snaps. Her jaw like a little baby alligator's. Tense and deadly. Changing gears like a goddamn pro.

"You know what it is. You ain't got to ask." He pours the honey on. Wants her to probe him some more. Loves that she cares enough to fret about it. That she wants his confirmation. She sits quietly for a while. Obviously not satisfied with this cop-out of an answer. He takes pity on her.

"Look, ain't nothing sure here. For us. But I reckon that this, you and me, right now might be as good as it gets." Wants to say, come hell or high water, he'll be here. But it's so damn hard. The lie by omission lingering, oxidizing the air between them. He won't let her come with him to the island. Will cheat her out of it. His most loving con ever. He twists the cap off the water and offers it to her. She declines with a swift shake of her head, so he takes a swig himself. The water is cool and clean and delicious in the heat.

"So why haven't you said it?" Grumpy, eyes stubbornly on the road. As they should be. Hell, he has no wish to end up in some flea-infested country hospital in the outskirts of Java. They hit a pothole and bump their head on the ceiling, throwing them off a little. Water spilling out all over his denims so that it looks like he's pissed himself.

"What? Said what?" Trying to pat it dry with the edge of his shirt.

"_You_ know."

And he was right. Well sort of. It's not the boring highway that makes her talk, open up. It's the fun of zigzagging breathlessly through the traffic from hell, on the verge of an anxiety attack.

"I don't know what's with you… and honestly I'm a bit put off by it. What about a truly horrible life-threatening traffic situation, makes you wanna' exchange heated love declarations?"

She snorts, too hard he guesses since she brings up the back of her hand to wipe her nose. Disgusting and cuter than a speckled pup. A man shoving a live chicken against their window as if to illustrate his point.

"I don't know. It's kind of hot…"

"Yeah. Sure it is! If you're a goddamn freak!" She meets his eyes and smiles, as if he's just told her she's the most gorgeous woman in the world. And she is. _She is._

They leave the hectic market place behind and the road ahead is somewhat more peaceful, only the odd meeting truck or bus, driving as if their tires are on fire, forcing her to pull over to let them pass.

"You miss her?" she asks biting her bottom lip and he's starting to regret the whole road trip idea. Far too much talking.

"What?" He pretends he has no idea who she's talking about, scratches his stubble and fakes a smile.

"Juliet? Do you miss her?" She looks at him, a little insecure and he can't believe she doesn't know better by now. Wants to tell her not to take her eyes off the goddamn road instead of sitting there ogling him.

"What the…? Why are you asking me that now?" he groans when he realizes that there is no getting out of it.

"I just want to know." That stubborn look she's got. Mouth tight and eyes darting back and forward between him and the road.

"Yeah, well… it was _easy_."

"And this? We?"

He has to laugh at that, a stupid uncontrollable chuckle that sounds like someone's grandpa.

"Yeah well, you are many things sweetheart but easy ain't one of them."

_Love you_, _you goddamn idiot._ And he should say it but to hell with it.

She drops it and they let silence rule inside the car. The air conditioning coughs like it's on its deathbed and then just gives up, spewing a last cloudy spray of Freon before it curls up and dies. Making them laugh, a spontaneous _what-the-fuck_ kind of laughter at their goddamn luck. They roll down their windows and the air is still scorching hot. He leans out on his elbow, breathing in the air of steaming hot nature.

The fertile fields of Java, paddy knee-deep in water, messy banana plantations and patches of jungle. Beyond lies the emerald green steep slopes, reaching for the majestic slate gray volcanoes. Everything warm, wet and green. Java and her, they go together, something about them that breathes strength and mystical attraction. The steering wheel is glossy from her sweaty palms, and her face is flushed, looking like it's a piece of wax about to melt. Reaches over to touch her leg. Gliding his palm over her jean-clad thigh. Letting it rest there. And she doesn't brush it off.

"James… What do we do now?"

"We run. Right? We get the hell out of here and we keep moving." He lifts his hand up snakes it behind her neck, in under the plait. Spreads his fingers wide to caress the nape of her neck. Sweaty and sticky and somewhat too frail beneath his hand.

"Where?" The voice, almost like a purr. Oh she's like a cat, the way she presses her neck backwards against his hand. Her eyes on the road. But he, he can look at her all he wants. How her face is tinted pink from the low sun. A warm peachy pink that makes her look young and innocent.

"Hell, I ain't the one with fugitive experience. I don't know. Wherever you wanna' go Sweetheart."

"Somewhere safe," she says under her breath.

Yeah, hell yeah. It'll have to be safe as hell. She's his. Won't let anything happen to her.

"Some big place, lots of people and confusion. A big city," he says, trying to sound as if he knows the least thing about what it will take to keep her safe.

"How long do you think it's gonna' be? Before Hurley's set up?"

It better be long. Better be months and months so that he has more time. Has to get to her, get her so tied down, so invested in him that this little deception won't matter. He needs time.

"Reckon it'll take a while, it's a hell of an operation he's trying to pull."

How long will they be able to keep this up? Not even a full day on the road and he's so caught up in her. He already dreads that phone call from Hurley. The 'we're set and ready to go' which will inevitably mean the end to them. _The end to this_.

That jump off the helicopter. Hell, he'd paced back and forward in his ugly little Dharma house more nights than he cares to remember. Wondering if he did the right thing. If it had been worth it. And still, he knows, even in hindsight, that he did it for her and he'd do it again in a heartbeat. The going back to island, without her, it's just how it will have to be. She has to be safe. All else irrelevant.

"Are you coming?" Small timid voice. _Shit._ Her question too direct, gives him no legroom to maneuver out if it.

"I don't know," he mumbles. She takes him completely off guard when she pulls his hand away from her neck and brings it to her face. A strangely sweet little gesture, kissing his injured knuckles gently.

"I'm… Thank you James… for this…" she says in a curiously courteous manner turning his hand over. Sniffing the inside of his palm, making him slide it across her cheek. _Christ_, he's so ruined, it's not even funny. Has to withdraw his fingers from her. Fears it will show through, how utterly fucked he is.

"My pleasure baby… any time…" he says to cover it up. Pretending to be sly and flip about it all. As if she couldn't just crush his stupid heart between her fingers. He's so frail now. And god, it has to settle down soon, he has to get this out of his system. He looks forward to the time when he can regard this as mundane, her and him, not be in such a state about it.

He closes his eyes and leans back against the headrest. She's humming something, out of tune for sure. Hell, he doesn't know and he doesn't care. Happiness. This is how it feels. Complete and unpolluted. Just him and her. Nowhere to go. No future.

He imagines how it'll be once they get to a hotel. They'll look for some poky little place , small and homely, will ask to see the room before they make up their mind. Pretending to be choosy when really, he'd sleep in a goddamn dumpster if only she were with him.

The room will be nothing special, but they'll be so needy it won't matter.

He'll register them as Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer, just to tease her. Will watch with satisfaction how she rolls her eyes at him when she cranes her neck to read it over his shoulder. Her face so near he might just turn his head a little and kiss her. He'll sign the guest book with a flourish and pay the clerk in raw cash for one night only.

He can even see the rest, how his eyes will be on her slim hips as she moves up the stairs ahead of him, hair swinging on her back, dragging all of those plastic bags. It's so vivid, techno color clear, the red shoes on her feet. That _he_ bought her.

It'll be warm inside, stuffy and smell funny, but it won't matter. Not to him. He'll take a quick detour to the windows, slam them wide open to the street. Imagines the smell of barbequed meat and spices rising, wafting in from the vendors beneath. He'll swivels around to catch her, his hands ready to grip her hips.

Wants to pleasure her, six ways from Sunday and then some. So that when all goes to hell, she'll remember this and think that she can't live without it. Will forgive him when he dumps her, tricks her out of going back to the island. Because that's what's going to happen.

That song she's humming, it sounds familiar. Realizes that she's trying to string together 'It's a man's world' and not quite succeeding. Bizarrely soothing how she doesn't hit a tone right.

"I love you."

Startling. What's worse, that it's '_his'_ voice. Hoarse as if he's trying to clear the pipes out. And her, all smug at the wheel when he wedges open one eye to inspect the damage. Grinning, baring front teeth and pulling her nose up at him.

"What? Didn't hear you…" Like the cat that got the cream. All that hair coming loose from her plait. The wind playing with the little stringy strands. And irritating sort of dance across her face, some sticking to her glossy forehead. He doesn't want her wiping them away, letting go of the steering wheel all if the time. He leans over to do it for her, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. Taking the opportunity to touch her cheek. Hot and flushed with life.

"Too bad then Jitterbug 'cause that's all you get today," he mutters. Sits back in his seat again, shutting his eyes. Her snigger warms him to the core. A flush of heat that can be felt up and down his spine and has nothing to do with the sweltering temperature of the car. But he said it. It's out.

Not that it could have been big news to her. Far from it.

…..

"Sawyer…"

"Mmmm."

_Please say we're there and that there is a big nice bed waiting for us around the next corner,_ he thinks.

"That… that doesn't look good. Does it?"

His eyes pop open and it takes a while for him to focus on whatever it is she is indicating. The smoke rising from the engine, an angry lead gray cloud of it.

"Oh fuck it. Jeez, just pull over already Freckles!"

She does, so fast and jerkily, he finds himself with his cheek almost pressed against the windscreen. They scatter out, each on their side to inspect the coil of smoke and the fizzling sound, wheezing out from under the hood like a dying beast.

"Shit." She pops it open and the dumb thing is literally boiling. Trucks keep rushing by them, kicking up large dust clouds that have them coughing. No one stops. It's late now, near dusk and shit. What a great old idea this was.

"Worthless piece of shit. They must be laughing their asses off back there."

"Yeah probably."

"Up the river without a goddamn paddle. Ain't this just great!"

He takes a seat on a large boulder by the roadside, knows jackshit about cars. Picks up his smokes instead. When in doubt, smoke. She looks none too pleased. Leaning over the engine as if she knows what she's doing. Yeah, well, she worked the car pool at Dharma for all of one day. Perhaps she'd managed to pick something up.

Finds himself wishing for Juliet. She'd know what to do with the old wreck. Too bad she's shacked up in Miami with a creep called Goodwin and not stuck on a dust road in the blistering heat of Java. He drags on his cigarette, fascinated by the sight of her. Stripes of black across her face where she's wiped the sweat away, poking gingerly in the engine. Doesn't look like she knows what the hell she's doing either. Hates the look of defeat when she slams the hood closed.

"I have no idea what's wrong with it," she says drawing her underarm across her shiny face. And he doesn't really care. Wants to lie down with her, somewhere cool, close his eyes and pull her close, so close it'd feel like they were made from one cloth.

She tries starting it but the hacking sewing machine-like sound doesn't seem promising even to his uninitiated ears.

"Screw it then, let's hitch a ride to nearest town then Peanut."

She just nods and they get their gear out of the backseat. He crouches on the side of the road and tries packing most of her things into his duffel bag. Enjoys the sight of the girly underwear mixed with his tee's and boxers. Like they belong together. The newness of it.

Aaron's blanket he tucks deep down when she turns away towards the road, keeping watch for meeting cars. He doesn't want to see it for a while, doesn't want her to see it either.

They stand sheepishly looking at the stupid brown heap of garbage. As if looking at it alone could fix it right up again. Damn it, they'd survived on that crazy island long enough, he doesn't understand why it feels so daunting to start the walk down this little road lined with banana trees, palms and lush undergrowth.

"It's going to be dark soon, we better get going," he says, hoists the bag up on his shoulder and pulls his arm around her waist. Not a very effective way of walking. But he just needs it.

The air is cooling down and the color of the sky above the volcano slopes is a ridiculous shade of Egyptian blue. So blue you'd think someone had painted it with ink. The cicadas make a racket in the banana groves and he can feel the mosquitoes picking up their game too. Probably aiming for her, succulent like a sun ripe peach. Hell, he would if he were a goddamn bloodsucker.

"Sawyer…"

Still can't work his mind around it. When he is Sawyer and when he deserves a 'James'.

"Yep Honey bug, you got something on your mind?"

"No… Well, yeah… This was a pretty good day," she says and fires off one of those toothy smiles that makes him loose his balance a little.

He laughs because it was anything but. It was a shitty day from start to finish but he is with her, so how bad can it be?

And foolish, foolish thoughts. That maybe with him, she can move on. Or with thousands of hours on the couch of some shrink or a whole lot of alcohol, damned if he knows. But maybe little by little, that shit that they can never talk about, who she is, will fade away and the good memories will outnumber the bad ones. He likes the thought of that. Of simple mathematics conquering her past.

"It's not all bad... And we ain't killed each other yet. Who'd have thought huh?"

To walk like this, he tucks her in closer to him, making her stumble a little and smells her openly, just pushes his nose into her hair and sniffs like a dog. Something sweet, something salty, a little sweaty too. But it's good. It's all good.

"Yeah, who'd have thought…" Her little affirmation. Like squeezing water from a stone, but he reckons if anyone can, it's him. How she slows him down a little, stands up on her toes and he knows what's coming. God, in spite the awkward angle and the fact that he must smell like a raccoon to her, she kisses him. A light sweeping kiss that honestly stirs up far less innocent thoughts than it should. Tries to hold her there but knows that he has to stop it. Not the time and place for swooning.

She pulls back again with a last little peck on his cheek and they walk on in silence, throwing glances between them. Just the sound of shoes crunching against the road and not a goddamn truck as far as the eye can see now that they need one.

And it's almost dark when they see the silhouettes of people approaching from afar. Feeling ridiculously relieved when they get close enough to see that it's two men pulling a buffalo cart, and two walking behind it. Just about to say 'howdy' when he notices that the two fellows in the back are looking anything but friendly. Eyes large and white against harshly dark leathery faces, and what's more; brandishing crude-looking machetes.

"Eh… Freckles, hope you don't mind parting with a bit of Hurley's dough..."

"No. Not at all," she breathes next to him, pulling away a little.

…..

_Reviews are cherished, good or bad. I know the pace was a bit slow in this chapter tried to give them a little time for awkwardness. Being on the road in a place where they can't just give into the attraction. _


	30. Another gulf

_Thank you, thank you all for your reviews and comments! _

_Another one of those chapters that I have a lot of conflicting feelings about. Should I have cut out this or that and have I just thrown too much crap into it. Hope you don't hate it. Oh, and it definitely gets a little rocky in this chapter, it couldn't be helped. And ridiculously, laughably long chapter again. I don't know what's wrong with me, not too good at discarding stuff. _

Rated M: for language and sexual content ( quite a bit in this chapter - again)

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

…

**Another gulf**

….

She ought to be more scared than this. She keeps thinking that it will hit her but it doesn't. Something about the men's eyes when they get closer. She knows that look,

They are scared.

Two large men, dressed in farmer's garbs, black trousers reaching them to their ankles, cheap rubber sandals and t-shirts that have more holes than a sieve. They have almost identical thin, flimsy moustaches and square faces. Large and strong, ox-like shoulders, all of them. Except for one of the men pulling the cart who is wiry and slim instead, all bones and long tortured muscles. Hard life written all over him, even his face, a forehead in deep folds.

She watches Sawyer reach in under his shirt where he keeps the cash envelop tucked into his waistband. She slowly places her hand on his wrist and shakes her head when he glances at her, looking more pissed at the inconvenience than scared himself.

"No. Not yet."

One of the men with the machete shouts something, a barking sound in the balmy evening air. But she isn't afraid of him anymore.

….

It's beyond him how she does it, but she charms the pants of the entire entourage of farmers. Smile like a sun, eyes glimmering in the dusk. He hears her laughter where she walks a few paces ahead with the one that seems to be the leader of the little group. Machete safely tucked into a wide black leather belt. His broad bare feet slapping against the road as he walks. Somehow she manages what he never could. This cross-cultural communication, equal measures of flirting and gestures.

She leads them back to their car. Like an old silent movie, a lot of comedic effects, wide expansive gesticulation that have them all loosening up, driving away all residual tension. She somehow manages to explain with a few simple movements how she was driving happily along with him when smoke suddenly engulfed the car. The men grin at her, flashing impossibly healthy teeth. The type that has never seen a grain of sugar. He has to laugh too at the sight of her. Her ridiculous talent for the impossible.

And for all he can understand, they are invited to come along with the group. Where, they have no idea, but they figure, it can't be worse than walking the road at nighttime.

"You trust these people?" he asks her. Not because he doesn't but because it takes him by surprise how easily she connects, how easily she trusts _them_.

"Yeah," she says with a certainty that blows him away. "Yeah I do. They would have hurt us already if they'd been any threat to us."

_Dead certain. _Walking there happily swinging her arms as if they're on a cute little adventure. Recognizes her like this, the little impromptu excursions on the island, how she'd blossomed then. She thrives on this.

…..

They walk down a little dirt road, painfully slowly, following the pace of the men with the buffalo cart. Sawyer grows impatient and tries to help pull it along. Failing miserably to the men's great entertainment. It's a little emasculating to watch the wiry old fellow pick up the weight he can't handle and trudge on as if it's nothing.

They reach a little group of houses. It's so dark he can hardly make out their surroundings and still, something about the people here makes him feel safe. Like a long lost son returning home. The way the men usher them inside, the women managing to be sweet and dignified in the way they fuss around them.

Sawyer can't remember being showered with such warm, affectionate attention so effusively since early childhood. They find themselves seated on some kind of straw mats on the floor in a large empty room and soon food is arranged in front of them. A large basket lined with green leaves filled with steaming hot rice, vegetables, beans and some kind of flat deep-fried fritters. There are no cutleries and they eat with their hands, trying to copy their hosts.

Hot sweet tea is served in tall glasses and there is an excited curiosity, the way their hosts observe their every move. The grand pa of the house is seated to his right. A toothless little man who wears a batik scarf tied around his head. A calm dignity to him, the way he speaks, soft, singing tones. Smiling, laughing, as if he's telling Sawyer some amazing stories indeed. And he probably is. He slaps his thigh to make a point, indicating his children around him. Smiles and nods at Kate across the mat, drawing the shape of a large pregnant belly in the air in front of himself.

Sawyer shakes his head and doesn't know why, but it feels like shit to say no to this question. This man surrounded by a large obviously loving family. This, he'll never have this. At least not with her.

She is seated a bit away from him, surrounded by women and children. People keep putting food on their plates, gesturing with their hands towards their mouths. _Eat more, eat more. _Once again he's left to marvel at the kindness of strangers. And at her, sitting there in her ridiculous outfit looking right at home. Flirting a little with him too. Making round funny eyes at him and blowing her cheeks out when she thinks no one is looking which is foolish because there are eyes upon them the entire time.

Predictably, someone shoves a goddamn baby in her arms, a tiny little thing tied in a tight cloth like a spring roll. The little scrawny thing mews like a kitten, mouth rooting for a breast. She meets his eyes then, across the carpet and he aches for her. Something new in him when he looks at her there with a stranger's child in her arms. Wants to give her that, take away that primitive pain in her eyes. Wants to tell these kind people to keep their damn babies away from her. Not what she needs.

….

They are shown a little closed off corner of the house, an alcove that is shielded by curtains. There is a thin padded sleeping mat on the floor and some cloths neatly folded where there should be pillows. The only light available, a faint glow penetrating from the oil lamp in the main room.

They hear someone laughing at the other end of the house, people mumbling, talking. The sounds of their hosts getting ready for bed too. It seems to be a ridiculously happy house. There is obviously a whole horde of children living here but she doesn't hear a single cry, no whining, nothing.

He unfastens his belt and steps out of his jeans, leaving them there on the floor. It's hot and stuffy and he wrestles his shirt off too. Bunches up his duffel bag and reclines on the bed mat using it as headrest. Can't help staring at him unfolding his long limbs like a large lazy cat stretching out. The light from the oil lamp, licking across his chest and shoulders, accentuating how he's glossy from perspiration. The way the shadows fall across him, that smile. All that's missing is a straw between his lips and a cowboy hat.

"Come on Short cake, lets hit the sack," he whispers and spreads his arm out for her. "Not how I wanted this day to end but I'm patient Freckles."

He's anything but and so is she. She can hardly look at him. She turns her back towards the curtain for the off chance someone nosy might catch a glimpse of her.

"But if it ain't getting better already…" he drawls when she pulls the dress thingy over her head to get rid of her t-shirt, feeling pungent as she raises her arms.

"Hey, this isn't a private show," she wheezes, fighting the urge to shield herself. "Turn around!"

"Yeah? Nope, no, I don't think so Princess. 'Sides ain't nothing I haven't seen before."

Enjoying it at the same time. His expression as he admires the red bra, cocking his head first to the left, then to the right.

"Mmm… gotta' give it to him. Sonofabitch knows what looks good on my girl."

_My girl._ The arrogant stamp of ownership, an absurd turn-on. His eyes trawling from her breasts to her face. She draws the dress-slash-nightgown back over her head and tugs it down around her shoulders and chest so that she can get rid of the bra without offering up some more x-rated stuff.

"Aw," he whines. "That's just plain cruel."

"Yeah, dream on," she snaps.

"Oh I will," he says eyeing her up and down with a smirk." You know I will."

She yanks the dress back down over her hips before she tries wiggling out of the skin-tight jeans. _God_, the freedom when the jeans come off. She folds her clothes up, not because that's something she normally does but just to make a point. That she's not eager to slink down into his arms at all.

"Now, will you please get your freckled ass over here so that we can catch some sleep?"

She makes sure the curtains are closed properly and then she turns to lie down there. How his hand almost waves at her, impatiently and she glides near him, her back against his chest. He crosses his arms over her breasts. Softly brushing them through the nightshirt. Taking her, just like that.

"And now that this freckled ass is here…" he murmurs into her neck, drawing her hair away for his mouth. Hands sliding in under the shirt, skimming her sides, waltzing along to cover her breasts, coasting back down the curve of her hips. Pulling at the elastic of her underwear. "Take 'em off."

"We can't… Not here…" she breathes. The 'no' comes from logic but what she really wants to say is that she doesn't care where they are. The tingle of desire between her legs how her heart pounds when he presses his hips against her buttocks. His arms, solid and wonderfully heavy around her. It could be so easy, if only they kept it quiet.

"Yeah... you're right," he sighs and they both know that's the end of it. They're guests in a strange house with people they don't know. There are no walls softening sounds, no real protection from insight. They can't even think of it. "But once I get you alone it'll be just like Christmas morning. I'm gonna' unfold you like a big old present."

The kiss beneath her ear and the stream of whispers that comes next almost makes her change her mind. All the things he'll do to her, once they're on their own. Embroidering, elaborating, setting the mood. Damn him. And the worst is, she knows it'll be just like that too. It isn't just talk.

He hugs her close to his chest, his erection clearly discernable jutting against her. All the whispering doesn't help. Makes them restless and antsy. They change positions a thousand times, wiggling and twisting and turning. It's hot and sticky to lie this close but there is really no other way.

"Hey, stop worming around like that," he whispers irritably, gripping her hips where she lies, back against his chest.

"Stop moving yourself!" Because she could have sworn it was him who just ground himself against her. Shamelessly.

"Hell, this ain't right Freckles," he wheezes against her neck. His hands up her nightshirt, the way he lifts her breasts up slightly. Gently, as if she might break into pieces. "It's plain torture."

"Yeah."

Someone kills the oil lamp in the main room and their little sleeping spot is blanketed in black. She shivers when he kisses her there, just where her hair ends and the skin begins. Fingertips licking across the tips of her breasts.

"You can't go to the island Kate."

Hates when he shoots from the hip like that. Likely to be hit by ricochets. Wants to duck her head and hide. Wants to groan at the unfairness of it. Doesn't want to talk now. Wants to loose herself in the feeling of his hands on her skin. The things he does.

"I have to," she whispers and wants to protest when he withdraws his hands from under the shirt. Does something completely different. Fingers sweeping by her face, her cheek. A simple sweet caress.

"Hell, they don't _need_ you for that Freckles. Let them go. Give you and me a chance to screw things up before you go running again.

"I'm not running, and I told you, I _have _to be the one who gets him back." she says so quietly, it almost disappears in the darkness. Something so new, so frightening. The 'you and me'. Dizzying to think if him and her in the same sentence. Not him and Juliet. _You and me._

"Ain't got to be you. Ain't no reason for it." Hears him draw his breath in.

"Yeah it does."

"So can you honestly tell me there isn't a little, tiny, puny bit of you that's glad for an excuse to up and go rather than stay put and see how we can fuck this up?"

"Very little piece. Mostly, I just wish it were different James. Easier… not so much history."

"Some pretty damn good history too." The heat from his mouth on her neck, making her hair stand up.

"Yeah, some of it very good."

His smile against her skin, teeth touching her neck. How this just makes him hug her so hard she can hardly breathe.

"So are you saying you ain't scared now?" The hopefulness in his voice that makes him sound so young. Like it just wipes away all the years, the cynicism, softening hard edges. It makes her want to shelter him. This man who bruises easily. She won't hurt him.

"No…I didn't say that, you still scare the living daylight out of me."

"Is that so Sugarpop? You don't seem so damn frightened now…" He turns her on her back, his fingers wrapped around her wrists, drawing them above her head. His lips along her jaw, finding her face by chance in the absolute lack of light. At the corner of her mouth, that way he has, like he is a little lost. The asymmetry of his kisses that makes them so delicate when he finally meets her lips straight on. The tip of his tongue, tasting her, making her hungry for more. His tantalizing teasing mouth across hers, making it almost impossible to think.

"Yeah."

He brings his arms up alongside hers and puts his weight on her, just enough. The humming, simmering sound of their muted voices in the darkness.

"What do you want Kate?"

"I want to go home," she says without a moment of hesitation because the truth is easy to spill in the darkness. Thinks he senses it too, the way he digs right in to the core. "

"What home? Iowa?"

"No...I meant... I want to feel at home, somewhere."

A little pause in the darkness, and _oh_, how heavy he is, his hair tickling her cheeks.

"So do any of these domestic musings include a man per chance?"

"Are you saying you want to be domesticated Sawyer?" Feels like teasing him but senses there is something genuine there. Something honest and plain underneath the flippant questions.

"Yeah Peanut, maybe I do.

Lies they tell each other, and themselves. As if they have the luxury to make such choices now. As if it were even remotely possible. Where would they go? How would they live? There are no answers to that. None to be had.

"Ain't we something, you and me…?" he whispers and she can't find anything to say that is more articulate than another 'yeah'. His lips igniting other senses.

A door slammed shut somewhere in the house and then silence. Only the sound of insects, their gentle concert in the night. They fidget and fumble, trying to find a position to sleep which is close enough but not so close the desire flares up again. They fall asleep like that, tangled up, his leg heavy across hers, arms around each other. Still strangely tense and jittery, but loosing out to the exhaustion.

…

Some time during the night she awakens. She has no idea how it happens exactly only that it starts with her turning towards him, half asleep still, a desired fanned by the close proximity and the scent of his skin. How he smells musky, of man and testosterone. That slightly wild odor of forest floor, not unpleasant. Rather the opposite. The darkness heightening everything, like being immersed in a womb. It's warm and soft and all she can feel is the nuances of his skin, softness of flesh, hardness of muscles and bones.

And if tomorrow he looks her in the eyes and asks, she will swear she was asleep the whole time. Didn't know what she was doing. Will swear she wasn't the one who scooted in closer under the batik cloth. She definitely won't admit that she pushed her fingers around the back of his head, into his hair and kissed him in the darkness. Will deny how she savored the spicy taste of him. No she won't admit to any of it. Will pretend that she was still asleep the whole time and that it was all his fault.

She thinks she can pinpoint the exact moment when he wakes up. A little dip, a tiny little pause in his breathing giving him away. And how he kisses her back, his lips soft and drowsy on hers. The texture a little rough, dry at the centre where she knows he has the gash, Can't help running the tip of her tongue over it.

He pretends right along with her, that he's not really responsible, that he's not completely awake. Just the sound of their huffed breaths and sighs. Butter soft, how he follows her, moulds himself around her. His chest warm and the texture of his skin impossibly smooth. She pushes her nose flat against his cheek bone. Rubbing against him. _Oh god_. Loves him then. When his sleepy breath hits her square in the face. When he is vulnerable and unprepared like this.

The stillness of them, everything humid and balmy and the pleasure dreamlike, nothing quite real here in total obscurity He's like a warm summer-night around her, on her, everywhere. She can hear him attempting to make his breathing light and rhythmical, as if he were asleep automatically setting a languorous pace. He's all mellow softness, rolling across her, large and a little clumsy. His knee parting hers, making space for himself.

So quiet in the darkness, scared they will attract attention of the others. But she can hear him, his way of breathing, and the little 'mmm' at the back of his throat when his warm hand finds its way up between her legs, pushing aside her underwear a little. Fingers, warm and sensitive, parting her, finding her. How he lifts her nightshirt up, the sensation of his breath moving downwards across her lower belly, down between. The first lick that has her biting the inside of her cheek. Grabbing onto a fistful of his hair. And all is wet gliding warmth that has her legs falling apart unabashed. Encouraged by the total darkness. Only, she has to be quiet. Can't make a sound.

But tomorrow she will swear she was asleep. Will insist she never felt his fingers dip inside of her, soft and so slow, the lazy samba of his hand and mouth, in perfect coordination. Both of them trying to be silent, every minute little movement intensified because of it. His tongue, broad and strong and insistent, not letting her get away. It's so quiet she can almost hear the slippery friction. And as if someone has set off an emergency flare in their little corner. All goes white. An iridescent alabaster white, unspoiled, unsullied, like a bright light under her eyelids.

Tomorrow she'll pretend she wasn't aware of any of it. But tonight, she can still be real. He has her unfurling, opening up. Wants to cry out but finds his fingers across her lips. A little "Schush" that brings her back. The smell of herself on his skin. Can hear him then, his voice accompanying the rippling wave that just sweeps her under the surface. A whisper so faint it seems more like wishful thinking than reality.

"_Kate_…" Her name, as if it's something beautiful.

The ambrosial taste of his lips as he comes back up to her face again, the scratchiness of his chin as it rubs against hers. The two of them here in some hut out in the middle of nowhere, the rest of the house probably aware of their every movement. But there is a timeless naturalness about it. How the skin wants skin and how he just holds her to him. Rolling her to her side helping her pull down the nightshirt.

"You okay Jitterbug?"

There is no pretending it isn't happening. There is no way around it. He's here and it's real and they are both awake. Tugs the thin fabric around them and snakes close to his chest, her arms drawn up between them. She nods, rubbing her forehead against his, how he breaths heavily as if he's been running.

"Is that a yes?"

"Yeah."

He hugs her, bulky arms twice her size. They drift back into sleep, just like that, his arms around her back, a hand reaching up behind her neck playing with her hair.

_Won't last. _But god, it feels good now.

….

It's at the crack of dawn. He checks the time on his cell phone, _well Doc's phone_, and it's five thirty, barely. Tender gray morning light sneaking in through the void between roof and walls. No wonder he's been eaten alive by mosquitoes. And her, next to him. The girl of last night like a dream.

She lies there, clinging to the far edge of the sleeping mat. Curled up, her back hard and bent. Defensive and wary. And maybe he's reading too much into it, maybe it's just the way she sleeps and it has nothing to do with anything. Still, he hates him then, the sick pathetic bastard, the faceless man that he wants to blame for this. For stealing her from him, alienating her from the rest of the world, preventing any real bonds from forming.

And fuck. Who was he? Who the fuck took a girl and turned her into this. A person that doesn't feel safe enough to sleep sprawled out on her back snoring and drooling like normal folks. It's been a while since he's seen this and his heart sinks when he realizes that he is nothing compared to that legacy. A few kisses, a fumbling, awkward love from him is like a drop in the sea. It changes nothing. She is what she is.

Lies there behind her, staring at the outline of her spine visible through the shirt. Feeling somewhat guilty that he hadn't been there. He knows it's absolutely absurd, but that's how he feels. Like he should have gotten to her earlier.

He leans towards her, supported by his elbow. Reaches a hand over to touch her cheek, tempting, a ripe apple blush and deceptively peaceful. Flinches at his touch, a jerky reaction that he recognizes, hands that fly out. Defensively. He has woken up like that many times himself, startled, deep into his dreams. Dreams he'd only been too glad to leave behind.

She bolts up sitting, stares at him with empty eyes for an instant before he can see that it sinks in. Remembering where she is and with whom. It breaks his heart when she turns to him, scoots in close, a faked cuddliness. Something she puts on because she thinks that's what he expects. That's what he wants. Stretches her arms upwards, casually circling them behind his neck. Wonders briefly if Jack would have fallen for that act. And yes, he would. He'd have wanted to believe in it.

"Morning," she murmurs, her palm on his neck. Her plump lips, kissable and as if she wants this. _All false._

"I hate him for doing this," he whispers and damn, it's not something that should be said. Just a thought, a thought that escaped, got out, took a foolish leap. Feels her stiffening and knows what comes next. 'Who? What? I don't know what you're talking about.' The denial, the show she puts on for everyone. For herself. Knows she'll never answer, will never talk to him about this.

She looks down, her eyes fixed somewhere on his chin. As if this is her shame only, nothing he can share in. And maybe it is. He gingerly puts his arms around her. _Is it okay? _Will she balk? His arm seems about as welcome as a king cobra trying to sniff her.

She doesn't answer, as he knew she wouldn't. Gives him a quick hug and pulls away, eyes downcast. The shame just engulfing the little alcove making it hard to breathe. She edges away, escaping him and his clumsy presence. She stands up, proceeding to pull her jeans up under the dress. Damn. Damn him and his big fat mouth and stupid questions. They were so good. Last night, the sweetness of her. And now he's gone and wrecked the mood.

"Hey Sweetheart, I reckon these people would adopt you in a heartbeat. You seem to be a real hit with this crew," he says grinning at her, trying to lighten up to move on from this precarious topic.

"You think? It's tempting... It's a nice family," she says and he's grateful that she plays along, letting his stupidity slide. He watches how she buttons up her denims, holding the dress up with her chin pressed against her chest to see better. The curves on her, sublime, just enough woman.

"Yeah, apart from the barbarian habit of shoving their little spawn on unsuspecting guests," he says offhandedly. Not meaning much with it.

"I don't mind so much." She lets the dress fall back down over her hips and he regrets loosing sight of her little sweet belly.

"You sure?" Somewhere here the humor falls aside, leaving a simple bare question. And before he can stop himself, something to do with the vision of her soft naked belly disappearing under the dress. "Hey... You... well, the baby. How far along... you know? When you..?

Doesn't know where the question comes from. Not as if he's been lying awake thinking about it. Maybe it's grandpa's nosy question last night, hell he doesn't know.

"It doesn't matter anymore." She turns her back on him, squarely. Her way of signaling 'back off'. But he can't. Not now. Wants to reach for her, get closer. How frustrating it is not to be let in here. A big fat roll of barbed wire wedged across this door. Barricaded against intrusion. And he wants in. Has to get inside. Now.

"It does to me." Because suddenly it does. It matters a whole lot. The old man with his great big family, and him and her, just desperately trying to connect. Or perhaps he's the one trying to connect. She is holding her shield up between them, refusing to let him near her. Hears it in the obvious reluctance in her voice.

"Four months and a little..."

_Fuck._ He's floored. Four. Fucking. Months.

_A baby_, he thinks. In that instance it goes from being an abstract nothing, an inconvenience, to being a real loss. A somebody. Quantified only by the amount of time it had in her belly. Something of him and her, measured in weeks and days.

She searches for something in one of the plastic bags. Comes up empty as far as he can tell.

"I'm sorry," he says sheepishly. For the umpteenth time. For prying and for asking and for being a total asshole. She shrugs and fuck it, if he could take that time back. Make her feel less scared, less unwanted. What an idiot he'd been. That morning when he'd asked her and she'd said she was sure, wasn't pregnant at all. He'd believed her. Been ecstatic about it too and not all that discrete about it from what he recalls.

She crouches on the floor to tie up her shoes and then she pushes the curtain away, still not looking at him.

"It was a boy."

That's all she says before she disappears out into the safety of the house, out to their hosts. Hates how that word, that one word she slips in there makes it all real. _Too rea_l. A boy. And now it's no longer an anonymous 'it'. It was a boy and it was his and hers.

….

Never has he gotten dressed quite that fast. Sets off after her because _hell_ if this discussion is over. Not quite familiar with the emotions it stirs up. Just feels angry. Cheated. She's kept this information all this time. As if he's… what? Some kind of asshole who wouldn't be able to feel anything beyond selfish relief that it had ended like it did.

Finds her outside the house, standing by a big barrel of water with a piece of cloth, wiping her face, scooping up water and splashing her neck with it. Two little kids staring at her as if she's an alien entity. Each clutching a little discolored towel.

Bumps her away a little, makes space for himself next to her, pretending he has to urgently wash off as well. And he does goddammit. Has to wash away the jarring impulses that suddenly are bouncing around within.

"Hey, take it easy!" she says, pulling back, wiping her face with the edge of her nightshirt.

"Take it easy? Take it easy my ass!" he growls, both hands gripping the barrel and angling his head so that he can glare at her. Torn between wanting to hurt her and wanting nothing but to hold her. "Why the hell didn't you tell me before?"

"Didn't think you'd want to know." Bites her lip and looks away, at the two kids ogling them. Probably aghast at the uncouth rudeness of hogging the family's only bathroom. But he doesn't care now. Doesn't know what he cares about or why this is so important. The fact that she hadn't told him about any of it.

"Yeah, cause I'm a big asshole and all that. I get it."

"No. That's not it. Look, you weren't there and it had nothing to do with you, that's why."

He fumes. Can feel the smoke oozing out from his nostrils. Damn her. The fact that Jack had known all about it, been there all along. It makes him nauseous. Though an alarm has gone off in his head screeching 'stop, pull out, don't say anything else' he can't. That's just who he is. Can never fall back. Will push forward, force himself onwards even though he knows for certain that he is on a self destructive one-way track.

"None of my business, my ass! Look, it was my goddamn kid too alright!" He feels betrayed for some reason, though underneath is a little smidgen of reason that whispers that she is right, he hadn't wanted to know. Not back then. Not even sure he wants to know right now.

"Yeah right, the one you didn't want anything to do with, " she mutters. "You shouldn't even be here James. You can't come with me."

Can't get enough oxygen. Takes a few short quick breaths but it doesn't feel nearly enough to fill his lungs with. The old panic attacks. It's been a while but he recognizes it. Doesn't understand how they can go from the intimacy of last night to this, open animosity, within the matter of eight hours.

"What's going on here? You've got cold feet now?" Hushed, contained anger that he hates. Wants to shout and scream and stomp his feet like a child. And meanwhile she backs away from him, away from the water container. Casually gesturing for the kids to go ahead. They do, while casting nervous glances at them, their disastrous inability to communicate. Shit. She can talk to them, to these people who don't speak a word of English, but there is no way she can have a simple conversation with him without the whole situation imploding on them.

"What life would you have? Think of Clem… she… she deserves a dad and… I'm not you're responsibility," she says, not unkindly. As if it's the simple truth and she has been tasked to tell him, send him back on the right path. And he hates her for playing the Clementine card. Making him into a heartless bastard whatever he does. Any which way he chooses, stay or go, it's all the same.

"It won't last James… you'd run for a while with me… It'd be exciting, like a holiday, an adventure. But sooner or later you'd realize it isn't so much fun after all.

And because he can't answer, has nothing to say against that, no bargaining chip or logic, he goes low, dipping into the sludgy mire.

"I'm realizing it already alright! It ain't much fun at all. It's fucking impossible to be with you., but I'm here ain't I?"

"And why is that? You feeling guilty? Is this your way of making up for it? If it is, I don't want it. I don't need it. I was fine before you came."

Wants to say that it's simple. He's here because he can't be anywhere else. There is no place else. Wants her. Even now when her face is an ugly red from the anger. Wants to say something to bring them back from the ledge, to pull them back onto safe ground. But somehow it doesn't come out. Stuck in his limitations, his lack of faith.

"What the hell would I be feeling guilty about?"

"About… jumping off the… and the pregnancy… and"

He cuts her off. Knows she'll sneak Juliet in there somewhere. How he should feel guilty for hooking up with her. For not waiting. And fuck if he'll take it. He _had _waited. Had waited and waited and wallowed in it enough to have paid his dues.

"I ain't got nothing to feel guilty 'bout. I did what I had to do and you know it."

After that they don't talk. And it's worse, much worse than the fighting. The gap so wide between them. The ugliness boiling under the surface, none of them will put their foot there, won't dare bridge it. The worst thing. How she doesn't look at him. Goes to great lengths to avoid meeting his eyes.

What the fuck is wrong with them?

…..

In daylight the house looks different from what he had imagined. For starters, it has only one proper wall, beautifully carved wooden panels with a door in the middle and paint flaking off it. The rest of the house has cement walls up to the knee and the upper part made from some kind of woven bamboo. It's a simple and effective shelter he guesses.

A man arrives with a big old toolbox fastened on his motorbike. He pokes around in the engine and every now and then he gives them a sparkling white smile that easily stretches from ear to ear. He sings as he works and somehow this gets Sawyers nerves wound so tightly they risk snapping every time the man hits a high note. He has a splitting headache that doesn't have a distinct origin.

They sit there on the steps to the house. Side by side, her arm so near his he can feel her body's warmth through his shirt. They don't talk. He hardly looks at her, but knows exactly what she's doing every single second. Her hair is matted and tangled today. She hasn't bothered brushing it or plaiting it into one of those silly pigtails she favors. Her mouth is tense and he can tell already that she won't talk all day. Has closes shop, withdrawn completely from him.

Doesn't even know why he's angry or why she is. Not really. Just knows that they have stumbled on something that is taboo. Not something to be talked about. A place where there is still festering infections and pain if you as much as look at it. Now they are distant and cold and he doesn't know how to get near her. How to break through the crippling isolation.

The ladies of the house keep coming with coffee, tea, sweetmeats every two minutes and every now and then one of the kids dares to come close enough to touch, poke him in the back or finger her hair a little. She humors them, smiles at them and pretends to try to catch them, but he just sits there, grumpy and uneasy. Can't help but feeling that something has been lost. Something golden and new between them. That first night together, the one where they are finally on the same page. They won't have it now. They've screwed it all up.

He's so intent on trying to ignore her, he almost doesn't notice the phone vibrating in his pocket. Stands up and distances himself from her a little, turning his back on her. It's Hugo's office number on the little screen. But it's Jack's voice when he answers.

"Where are you? Is everything alright?" Jack's concern makes him grind his teeth together. As if he's sure Sawyer isn't man enough to take care of her for one frigging day.

"Yeah yeah, everything is great. We've just had a little mishap with our transportation. Sorting it out right now."

"Make her dye her hair Sawyer. Her picture is all over the Balinese newspapers. Seems the police is quite keen on making a good impression."

"She ain't dyeing her hair Doc. There are other ways."

"Yeah whatever, just make sure she lies low alright?"

A little uncomfortable silence before Jack clears his throat. He stands there, feet wide apart, trying to take up some more space, establish his presence. With her. Though god knows why, it ain't as if Jack can see him.

"Is she there?"

"Yeah of course she's here," he sneers. Grinding his soles against the ground. Wants to kick at the rocks under his shoes, wants to kick up a fuss. "You think I've lost her already doncha' Doc?"

"I'd like to speak to her."

He wants to say; 'no, hell no'. But when he turns to glance at her there over at the doorstep, something tightens around his throat. Who the fuck is he to decide? She's hardly his. He's making a piss-poor job of everything and hell, he barely has a say in anything here.

"Sure, hold your horses Doc."

Saunters over and drops the phone in her lap. She fumbles with it, looks nervous and ill at ease when she sends off a little tentative 'hallo'.

She speaks with her face away from him, a hand held around the phone as if to soften the sounds. As if she doesn't want him to hear. Her shoulders drawn up high. The tension visible from a mile away. He picks up his cigarettes and paces back and forward near the car and the sweaty mechanic while she talks. Only hears her mumbling and wonders what the fuck they can be talking about for so damn long. Jealous, and he has no problem admitting it. It gives him a heartburn. He can't look. Pretends to be very interested in what the mechanic is picking with, though the guy could switch the whole engine with the innards of a goat and he wouldn't be much wiser.

Finally, she comes up behind him and hands him the cell. Careful not to so much as brush his hand with her fingertips. No eye contact. And then Jack on the line, aggravated and bent out of shape. A sharp edge to his voice.

"What did you do to her?"

What did he do to her? God only knows! He talked goddammit, just talked and somehow it opened up an abyss between them. Wants to ask Jack, how he had managed her, back in the days. How the hell had he handled her? Because obviously he hasn't got the faintest clue.

"Nothing Jack. I did nothing to her," he sneers. His turn to speak behind his palm.

"Then why is she so upset?" He sounds shrill or maybe it's the bad connection.

"Ain't any of your concern Doc," he says coolly and he can almost believe it himself. "She's with me now."

"Won't be for long if you keep up doing what you're doing."

"Speaking from experience Jack?" he says and tries to sound glib. But his heart is not in it. Feels like a big old boulder on the brink of a ravine. One well aimed kick and he's going down. "Just stay out of it alright! We're fine. She's fine."

"I meant what I said James," Jack says calmly. "You hurt her, I'll kill you."

"You do that Doc," he scoffs. "Just give us a holler when you're coming an' we'll pick you up at the airport this time, the little missus and me."

Cuts the phone call off before Jack has a chance to answer. Feels her eyes burning in his back as he takes a last drag on his smoke and kills it against the ground, crouching down.

A lot more nonchalant pacing until finally the mechanic stands up and slams the hood closed. He wipes his oily hands on his trousers and says: "okay." Which can't mean anything else but exactly that.

Sawyer pays him a handsome little sum for the work and they say their goodbyes to the family, leaving behind a little parting gift for room and board to them too. He throws their things in the back again and says a silent 'hail Mary'. Thinks he couldn't take another breakdown, not with this arctic cold between them. She takes the driver's seat without consulting him and he's just about to open his mouth when he realizes that he's in the far more desirable position. At least he can pretend to fall asleep. Already planning on staying mum until they get to their next rest stop.

And Christ, the scenery is gorgeous along the way. The volcanoes, the slopes everything. But it feels like an insult now, all this beauty, when he – they are so goddamn ugly, inside out. Can't even be kind to each other. Her hands on the steering wheel, white knuckled, and he wants to reach over and touch them. Wants to stroke his fingertips across those knuckles, tell her it doesn't have to be like this. They can be better than this. Sneaks a glance at her face. Doesn't want her to see him looking. Her jaws like they were cut in stone. Can see the nerves twitching there under the surface. Doesn't understand, why it has to be so damned hard with her.

Why intimacy is a foe.

He does the only thing possible. Pretends to sleep for the rest of the way. And there is no humming, no soft singing out of tune for him now. There is only silence.

…..

It's already dusk when they get to Blitar. The air vibrating with hundreds of prayer calls blaring out simultaneously through loudspeakers all across town. They find a little hotel and fuck it. He's got to get across to her. Got to make this alright. And he's waited for this for what seems like forever now. A room, just the two of them. All the time in the world. He unlocks the door and dumps all their gear just inside of it. About to reach for her. Thinking of wrestling her down on the bed, make her forget to be angry. Take the edge off.

"I'm… gonna wash up a little…" Painfully fake breeziness, dodging him in one agile move, just _swish_ and _swosh_ and away.

"Sure thing." He stands there feeling like a big fat dunce. Watching crestfallen as she disappears into the bathroom. Not going to be as easily mended as that. Gonna' take a lot of more work than a little bit of sex and some honeyed sweet-talk.

He has known all along, there was this side to her. Hell, he's seen it often enough, the irrational, yo-yo thing they'd had going on back on the island. How her capability for closeness would vary, would fluctuate. Thought he would be prepared for this. Still, the blow to his ego is hard to take. This, cutting him off completely.

Hears the water pouring in there. The room is ugly in a homely kind of way. The damp smell of mould. The walls are stained with moisture and there is no decoration to talk of, just a gaudy green glittery arrow marking Mekka's direction in the corner. It's stuffy and warm, the air conditioning barely functioning, but the window is not the type you can slam open if you wish. The bed, too narrow to be called a double bed with sheets that look threadbare and just passably clean. An ashtray is perched on one of the bedside tables, angry brown marks burned into the plastic. Barely clean. But he doesn't care. It seems oddly fitting for them now. This ugliness.

The flush of a toilet, and she comes out. Dressed in her t-shirt and the tight jeans. Making him think of Doc picking out these things for her. Fuck Jack. Fuck him for following them into the bedroom like this. She scuttles across the room and sneaks into bed on the opposite side. _Sneaks._ There is no other word to describe it. As if she doesn't want to attract his attention.

Dimly insulted by this and the wearing her stupid denims in bed. As if he's some kind of crazed sex-maniac that would just pounce on her, against her will. That she'd think he'd even go there now. That she wouldn't know him better than this.

"I'm really tired…." she says creeping further down under the single sheet. That look, the one that doesn't invite hands, doesn't welcome him in. Might as well be made of steel, the way she lies down there.

He marches across the room to flick the ceiling light off and immediately she reaches to turn the bed table lamp on. Scared of the dark. But only here, now. Last night in the village house she'd been okay and he'd never noticed it on the island. Not scared of the pitch black jungle or boars or monsters. But tonight, a dark room with _him,_ suddenly frightens her. He'll never understand her. Never.

"Yeah, I'm kinda' beat too," he lies because honestly, he would have pulled out all the stops to make everything alright again. To put them back on the right keel again. And it's not the sex he's longing for, that's not all. It's the lying near her. Warm skin, that fragrance of woman in his nose. He wants that. Devastating that they are so easily pulled apart. That they are so fragile, so damned unbalanced.

And _damn it_ if he's going to just take it on the chin.

He stands there, at the foot of the bed, unbuckling his belt, trying to catch her flighty eyes. Wants to cause a reaction, any reaction. Unloops his belt, doesn't know why. Just feels like throwing it with a clang on the ceramic floor. So he does. Making her look up at him, finally. Pissed or just surprised, he can't tell.

"_Talk_!" He kicks off his shoes, sending them flying across the room. "We ain't gonna' do it this way, so just talk goddamnit!"

"What?"

The '_what'_ managing to be defensive and shifty at the same time. And she really has to come up with some new avoidance techniques. Wants to tear his hair out when she does that. She knows exactly what he means and if they're going to have a chance, he won't take it lying down.

She doesn't move at all. Just lies there motionless and he can't believe they ended up here after a simple little conversation. Though he knows, there is nothing simple about them.

"Look, we don't have to have sex every waking hour, but fuck it if we ain't even gonna' talk about things. So talk!" Rids himself of socks, furiously pushing them down with his feet. Shoves his jeans down too, letting them drop in a pile on the floor.

"I can't."

She looks like she'd like to just disappear. _He waits. _Thinking there will be more. There will be some kind of explanation. _She's made a mistake. She doesn't really want him here_. Anything will do, anything but this weighty dead air between them.

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" _How the hell did Jack do it?_ How did he deal?

"Just what I said. I can't."

"Shit, it's like trying to squeeze water out of a goddamn stone. Just spit it out already, what the hell did I do wrong, what did I say that was so goddamn unforgivable!"

Is about to tear his t-shirt off and has an almost irresistible impulse to shed the boxers too. Just to get her attention. But instead he leaves both on and takes his place on the other side of the bed. Like a disgruntled husband. Each on their end. _Is this what she wants?_ What she needs? It hurts, either way.

"I can't talk about every little thing. It's… it's meaningless. It doesn't help…"

"I don't want to 'help'! I want us to cut out all the bullshit, that's what I want! What the fuck is this about Kate? Is this the part where you get a little jittery and pull away from me?"

Doesn't want this conversation that promises to generate more heat than light. Just wants her slick sweaty skin against his. But he _knew_ she might be like this going in. It isn't like she'll just change, just because she's with him. He's not _that _delusional. He has no choice but learning to live with it. Doesn't mean he's got to like it. And he doesn't, not one damn bit.

She just lies there biting her lip looking at him across the wide spread between them, in a way that makes him feel like the enemy. Her fists gripping hard around the edge of the sheet as if she thinks he'll pull it away from her, her face half buried in the pillow. The way the sheet is draped over her butt. _God._

If this is how she wants it. _Fine. _He tugs his own sheet up around him and fixes the pillow under his head. He clenches his eyes shut. As if he could sleep like this with her over there. She is quiet for a while and he thinks she might have dozed off herself when he hears her voice again. A little shattered.

"You don't owe me anything Sawyer. It wasn't your fault."

"I'm not here because I think I owe you!" he says through gritted teeth and opens his eyes to glare at her there across the void. He sticks his chin up stubbornly, as if they are two little kids fighting it out on the playground. Watches as she takes a deep breath, as if to steel herself. Gather courage and he thinks, fuck it. Just talk! Can't get much worse anyhow.

"Juliet and you… Would you still have been together, if… you know the bomb hadn't…?"

His stomach pulls together, he can feel it shrinking into a hard little chestnut. _Juliet._ Where did that come from? And he senses a minefield buried underneath it, a red flag shooting up from the ground. Better tread carefully. Tries to string it together in a sequence that makes sense to him, failing miserably. Baby, jumping the helicopter, Juliet. He must be dumb, but he fails to see how that equals betrayal, which is what it seems she is accusing him of. On all counts.

"Oh Christ, _that's_ what this is about? Juliet!"

"No…" she wavers, he can see that she hesitates.

"Then what the hell is it? You gonna' talk or send me around in circles on these goddamn guessing games?" He resents it deeply, having to lie like this, separated by what he imagines is a great big whale of ugly history.

"You should… you should be with someone else James." Meets his eyes with a sort of pathetic pleading expression that just rubs him the wrong way. What the hell does she want from him? Maybe he's bitten off more than he can swallow, with her.

"Yeah, well, maybe you're right, maybe I should. But I _ain't_." Wants to scream and shout and have the sort of fight where porcelain is smashed against floors and walls, hurled across rooms. Wants the combustive air to catch fire already. The tension unbearable like this. "So tough luck Sugar, I guess you're just stuck with me."

"You didn't answer. If you would have been with… you know…"

"I know Kate – Look, I can't fucking answer okay?" He raises his voice more than he'd have wanted. Wants to remain in control but every fiber of his being is yearning to fight this out properly. Passionately. Isn't sure he likes this contained, adult conversation full of little traps and underhanded connotations. He's tired and exhausted and he just wants to bury himself in her. Forget who they are and how they ever ended up here. Together.

"'Kay." She sounds about five, the way she swallows that 'o'.

"Okay? That's it?" Lifts his head to look at her. Blown away by the finality of that little 'okay'.

"I'm not… Can't give you the same things," she mumbles breathlessly as if it's a big old secret. As if he didn't already know all about it. "I'm not her."

Her eyes defiantly on him. As if she's challenging him. _So that's it._ That's how she sees him. A demanding pushy bastard who's too dumb to know that she comes with a baggage as large and daunting as Antarctica.

But he realizes how rare this is. Her opening up. This whole conversation in fact. Full of little clumsy, fumbling attempts to draw closer, to bridge the gap. Only maybe he's too dumb, too slow to catch on at once. It takes him a while to see what she's doing. Trying to tell him something in her own convoluted, roundabout way.

"Ain't _never_ asked you to be like her. _Never_."

The part of her face that is visible above the pillow gives him a little nod but he doesn't know what it means. _Fuck off?_ Is she relieved? Confused? Does she regret this? Him and her? Then he realizes that it's not any of those things. It's a frail but budding trust. He can feel it. How it brings them a little closer. The information dropped like a dead fish in his lap this morning. _A boy_. That's her trusting him and he, he had acted like an ass. Not seen further than his own nose, how it touched him, not what it had done to her. What Kate taking care of Aaron meant, this boy, just a rough nine months older than what he'd have been. Hers and his. Shit, he's such an idiot.

"I'm here because I want to Kate."

And he can see how her shape relaxes, she lets her shoulders fall down, doesn't clutch the sheet quite so hard. Her cheek, rounded and childish in the light from the bedside lamp. A warm wave of affection for her. Figures this is her way to warn him. Who she is and what he can't ask from her. She's a supposedly adult woman who can't even talk straight. Can't ever just say what she wants. Scared she won't live up to some kind of perfect woman ideal. Scared that she's not enough. He doesn't exactly know what they are talking about anymore. Suspects it's the venting of many issues all at the same time. How he'd skipped on her under the guise of saving her. How he'd shacked up with Juliet while she'd carried and lost a child, his child. This, the alarming fear of letting him close, of letting him see who she is.

"And I don't expect anything from you. Nothing much. And as for this… you and me here. Just cause you're with me doesn't mean I expect us to screw every waking minute of the day. If you ain't in the mood… well fuck it, I ain't some kind of oversexed beast... I'll wait for you. For when you want to."

"I know that. It isn't about sex alright!" Her voice snappy, as if she's trying to maintain some kind of mature dignity where there is none to be had. Not the place to watch her back. Wants her to just lay her cards down, relax, let him see her for what she is. He's no goddamn psychologist, but he knows people. And what's more, he likes to think he knows women. So he just blurts it out. The first thing that comes to mind, completely out of context.

"I can't see a family at the supermarket without wanting to retch." A confession he's never made before. Totally out of context. "The bickering, the chasing kids down the cornflakes aisle, it just plain makes me sick."

He says it because he wants to show her that he's fucked too. And because it's true. How his stomach will churn when faced with a little family unit. An envy that stains him down to the bones. Many times he's turned on his heels at the sight of a father and a son. Too damn hard to watch.

"Yeah, supermarkets are terrible," she says, coolly humouring him, but he can swear she moves a little closer. Nothing like hearing how screwed-up others are to make you feel a little bit more normal.

"You know I'm not here out of guilt right? I was just, you know I never realized… about what happened when you came back and…."

That baby. The _boy_. But he won't ever speak of him again. Tenderly closes the door to that room_. She's right_. He's got no right to snoop around in those hidden corners, rip open what's painful to her. It's all hers. He wasn't even there. Never wanted the damn kid in the first place.

"It's just that we don't have to talk about every little thing," she mutters and he knows that it's final. Won't bug her about it again.

"You're saying we suppress it like hell and pretend as if we're two regular Joes?"

"Nothing good will come out of talking about it."

"Sounds real healthy to me." But maybe she's right, they can either lie here and compare battle scars or just roll with it.

"Yeah well I don't much care for the alternative, do you?"

"No, I reckon we stick with the suppression Sweetcheeks. As for claiming to have been married, you ain't very well clued in on the big 'I-have-a-headache-codex'… You come up with a _plausible_ excuse, not some goddamn, 'I'm-so-tired-yawn, and then even if you don't feel like talking or anything there are still obligation that _nothing_ will get you out of."

"We're not married." She looks slightly alarmed.

"Semantics. I am not surprised your marriage didn't last longer than a fortnight if nobody taught you this. So just shut your goofy inarticulate mouth and come here…come here, scoot over little darling. Just come here before I have a goddamn stroke."

Just like that, she moves closer. Her jean-clad legs against his bare ones under the sheet. How she fusses around until she's got him the way she wants him. Everything he's ever wanted. _Home_. Her arms around him, not the other way around. His head on her shoulder, her fingers grazing his cheek, his lips. And he feels loved by her. Can feel how much she wants this, how she struggles.

_For him._

"This. There ain't no getting out of this." She's close. So close and she isn't fighting it. "Nonnegotiable."

Maybe she can. Maybe with him. Or with thousands of hours on the couch of some shrink or a whole lot of alcohol, damned if he knows. But maybe little by little, that shit that they can never talk about, who she is, will fade away and the good memories will outnumber the bad ones. He likes the thought of that. Of simple mathematics conquering her past.

And it's better than sex. By far. To lie like this, her heartbeat under his ear. Trying not to be too interested in the outline of her nipple under the black cotton, barely an inch from his mouth. Won't go there. Not tonight.

…...

He's almost asleep and his heart nearly bounces out of his chest when completely unannounced, she sneaks a hand down his stomach, palm brushing his skin, slipping into his boxers. And all of a sudden she's all over him. Like a damn that has sprung a leak, it all comes coursing out. All he could ever have wished for, right here. A little aggressive, impatient. The skin wants what it wants. His lips against her throat, the way she tastes, salty. Her hands down the back of his neck, in under his shirt. Small and soft and eager.

"What's this… ?" hoarse, he sounds like a crow. _Should just shut up_. Not ask. Just take.

"Nothing, " she exhales, the way they both struggle with her jeans, too damn tight, thrashing around on the bed. One common goal only. Eliminate all barriers between them.

"Like a goddamn chastity belt…bet Jackass did this on purpose…" huffing and puffing, trying to cringe her slightly sweaty jeans and shirt off. Her fingers tugging at the waistband of his boxers, much like he had done himself the previous night.

"Take them off!" she whispers and he doesn't know why it sets everything on fire, those three words. The fact that she wants him. That she is the one to welter herself over him. As if he's truly who she wants. Needs.

….

The reaching for him, as much for physical release as for erasing the ugliness of this day. Try to convince themselves that they are alright. In a strange way they are.

_He's mine_, she thinks, overcome with a sense of vertigo. The thickness of his arms, fine blond hairs dusting the skin. Skin like a caramel desert, making her want to taste, all of him. _Mine. _She can take him if she wants. And she does, god knows she does.

A brief pause and then as if he can't bear being clothed a second longer. Flings his shirt across the room bunched up into a ball. He looks funny the way he tries kicking his underwear off without getting up, eeling and squirming almost knocking her teeth out in the process. Like a large stranded killer whale.

He's not shy, knows he looks better in nothing at all. Something of a peacock the way he slumps down on his back, folding arms carefully behind his head. Beautiful like a golden skinned devil, obviously enjoying how she stares at him. The heat of the room oppressive.

Sitting up on her knees next to him. Unhooking her bra, both hands fumbling behind her back while his eyes kisses her skin.

"Lemme' do that Honey..." The lilt of the South in his vowels. Abruptly snatching hold, hands in a strong grip around her waist, toppling her over, drawing her down.

They twists and turns, he rolls her here and there as if he's wrestling an alligator and has them almost falling off the bed more than once. His hair sweeping her skin, fingers tangled in hers. Kissing her anywhere, everywhere he happens to reach. Sneaky, invasive kisses. Her head hanging over the edge, her feet in the air, limbs everywhere. Right now, there is nothing else.

He comes to a standstill, laying her down surprisingly tenderly, his hand up her neck, fingers sprawled into her hair. Eyes suddenly solemn, lips moving, as if he's practicing a line.

"We're screwed, aren't we Freckles?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

The mass of him between her thighs, his shoulders smooth and sculpted. The texture of his skin against her. Hands caressing her sides, up and down. The underwear doesn't remain on for long.

…..

The great big relief of stumbling back in her favor. Back to this.

Her 'take no prisoners' attitude, a little aggressive. The completely unexpected surge of lust at the end of this goddamn awful day. The blatant desire, how she presses herself to him. He doesn't think, doesn't plan it, how he finds himself thrusting into her, a little rough. Her hard gasp as if she wasn't prepared either. Pulls his head up to look at her and she is biting her bottom lip. Tucking it in under her teeth. He thinks he's screwed it up again.

"Sorry…" he rasps. "You okay?"

Arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Nods, pushing a freckled nose against his face. How her thighs envelop him.

"Yeah… yeah. Come... come here."

And then, the cold shower, cut off mid flight. Feels how she shifts, becomes a bridge, lifting upwards, breaking the balance.

"Oh. No. Stop!" And it's so fast, he doesn't even have a clue what's going on before he finds himself shoved to the side and her sitting up. Hair hanging down her face like a mad woman. "We're out of… You know…"

She sits up looking sheepish, gesturing at his poor shell-shocked privates.

"No. I haven't got a clue. I ain't no goddamn mind-reader." Not like this he ain't, with his game cut off. Can't think at all. Can hardly breathe. Wants to swear and curse for the loss of her warm wetness around him. _His fault. _Too damn carried away to give her the attention she deserves. And he's not one of those guys. He loves the foreplay, it's just that, all day with her like that. He just couldn't help himself.

"Protection. We don't have any..."

Libido clashing against the harsh reality of it. Screeching to a halt. _Shit. _Yeah, and there they are, responsible adults. Wants to kick himself for not checking it earlier, for not buying up a huge bulk of supplies, enough to last them till doomsday come. Though his mind admittedly hadn't been on this today. Hadn't anticipated her little surprise attack, not after all the shit that's been said between the two of them.

"Sorry…" she mumbles with a little shrug as if it's her fault. As if she's played with them, blown them up into balloons and batted them across the room.

"No problem," he says but come to think of it. It's goddamn weird. And he's little freaked out too, that she's keeping tabs. She must have been in his bag. Makes a mental note to always keep the phone on him. Doesn't want her reading all those texts from Hurley and Jack. " But hell… there ain't no way we could have finished them all. I had a whole bunch!"

"How presumptuous of you," she teases. Yeah, and she can laugh, she ain't the one about to explode. Seriously, he's got to cool it. _Think logical_, damn, she's right. No way they're going without.

"We'll get some tomorrow, 'sides I reckon I might still have one in my pocket."

"It's just that I can't risk it..."

And the cautious way she says it, has his mind racing in a completely new direction. When the hell did she check his bag? Yesterday, on the bus? Today, in the car? When? Knows that she's a bit leery of him, of the sexual side to this, him and her. Maybe doesn't want this to get out of hand. Her way to control it. Maybe she's chucked the condoms out, put the breaks on a little. Perhaps it's her way to slow them down.

"You do know I'm not some kind of brute right?" he says, sitting up. Swings his legs over the side of the bed and leans down to reach for his jeans on the floor. "I do have a smidgen of self control ya' know."

Not that he had shown any tonight. At all. She doesn't answer, just eyes him, biting her lip as he grapples with his jeans, one hand dredging the floor. He checks the back pocket and _nope_, there is none. The mathematics of it don't add up. It's not like they've used up more than a couple, they've hardly had the opportunity to. He could have sworn he'd bought enough to last a while, even though it had only been to peeve Jack. _Shit. _And still, the nagging suspicion that somehow she has something to do with it.

"Nope, nada… bet Jackass threw them away to put a damper on things. Damn saboteur," he mutters and though it's meant as a joke, she gives him a dark look, a warning. _Don't go there. _Yeah back off, maybe he's hit a sore nerve there. His heart sinking when he watches her fish her underwear off the floor and pull them back on. _No._ No way, he thinks, not after the day he's had, the one she's had. It has to end better than this. His heart beating hard in his chest. He's got to save this, savor her.

_To hell with the rubbers. _Will take her any which way he can. Her here on the bed with him in a funky little hotel in the backwaters of Java, too good an opportunity to waste on being petty. And she doesn't have to do anything. Wants to teach her how they can be, that it's not a big deal, can be easy and sweet, like last night. She doesn't have to do one damned thing. Hell, he has no idea what crazy demands she thinks he'll put on her now that they're together. Probably thinks he's some kind of sex addict. She sits there awkwardly next to him, eying him nervously. All but biting her finger nails. Yeah, to hell with it all.

How the bedsprings creak as he rolls her down, making her blush a deep cherry red. Probably worried the neighbors might think they're doing the dirty. Hell he doesn't care. Doesn't wait for her permission now, just wrestles her down so that she ends up on her back.

"What are you doing?" A mixture of a chortle and a '_are you fucking out of your mind_?'

"What does it look like?" Sniffs her skin, like a blood hound trying to pick up a trail. _Does she want him? _Smells like it. Like desire. Pulls her hands up away, his mouth on her stomach. He kisses that first. The pale plumpness of her belly. Something so delicious about it. The vulnerability of her there, no hard muscles or bone. Just warm skin and softness.

"But we have no…"

"Yeah? Well I can think up a dirty dozen of other things that don't require latex in any shape or form. And that's just off the top of my head."

She tries to sit up, feebly swatting him away. A little ticklish, the way she frets when he kisses her midriff, but she sure doesn't seem to find it unpleasant. Rubs his chin against the sensitive skin there while she squirms and fakes trying to get away.

"Like what? What are you saying? We don't use… anything?" Eyes narrowed, holding herself up, braced on her elbow one hand on his shoulder. And she's a bit off her keel, he can see that. He stops the kissing to look up at her, the pure delight in winding her up.

"Nah… I'm just saying. There's more than one way to skin a cat." She regards him suspiciously. "Christ girl, ain't you ever been a teenybop? There are other ways to be safe."

_Said the man who knocked her up_, he thinks.

"Oh really?" she mutters glaring at him. Her, mouth all bunched up like little kid in a strop. A silly tug of war with the straps of her panties. He pulls them down and she draws them up. "I know exactly what kind of teenybop you must have been. Sleeping with the entire cheerleading team for sure."

"Not all of them, at the same time… and always safely, no cheerleader-buns in any ovens…" He bites his tongue at that. Because _shit_, he'd put one in hers and Cassie's too. He doesn't exactly have a truck load of credibility. But she's busy holding on to her underwear and doesn't seem to have picked up on that so he brushes forward, fingers inside the lace, sliding down between her legs to make her loose her concentration. "Just let go girl… "

"No. _You_ let go!" Childish how they tussle and it's so cute the way she does it. How she wiggles, trying to wedge him away, make his position there between her legs uncomfortable. A hint of a smile under the faked annoyance. "Hey… stop. Sawyer. Don't…I mean, you don't always have to... It's okay, I don't expect you to... every time, especially now when we can't, you know. Finish."

She shrugs and rakes the hair away from her forehead. And _oh_, it's like trying to decipher some goddamn coded message. Has no idea what she's on about. Just that she's back peddling and maybe she wants this. Yeah, it does look like it. The little apologetic smirk she flashes him. The eyes that look at him and then flutter away.

"So Sugarpops, you telling me you don't want to or you ain't sure I do"

"Drop it Sawyer." The elation when her sulk disintegrates into a proper smile, embarrassed and delighted at the same time, her hands that come to rest on top of her chest, giving up the battle completely. Looking very innocent and pure indeed. The way she lies there. He settles down between her legs, grins at her. He teases those black shiny panties down her thighs, struggles to work them around the crook of her knees, and she doesn't help. _At all_. Has just managed to free her feet from them and crawled up to admire his handiwork when he feels her hands gripping his shoulders. Trying to pull him up again.

"What?" he asks innocently, resting his chin on her lower abdomen, as if that is his God-given right.

"The big fat Casanova act… the seduction crap. Just drop it." Breathless, a little shy, still straining to make him move up, but there is no real bite, no real effort.

"Yes Ma'm." He gives her a little kiss, right beneath her bellybutton. And he loves this. The bickering, the foreplay that only he and she can do. A little light dance that gets the pulse running and the skin burning with anticipation.

The flutter of eyelashes, the playing coy. Outrageous. How she looks on her back on the cheap bed sheets, skin like a succulent apricot. His hand trawling the length of her leg, smooth and soft, muscular but not exactly thin. Loves that there is a certain shape to her. Sensual, how she's shorter, definitely smaller than him but not exactly frail. Feminine but strong. How her knuckles can cause serious damage and how she can probably defend herself better than most men he knows.

Reaching up to smooth his hand across her breast feeling the nipples tighten under his palm. Smiling at how she pushes to meet his hand. He blows a little stream of steady air down her belly, sending little gusts down the top of her thighs.

Wants her to trust him, to relax, to feel comfortable with him. Moves down_. Down. Down. _His hands traversing, proceeding and legs that melt apart with wonderful ease for him. Letting his lips glide across the soft indentation between hipbones. All that white, pale skin. Fingers parting her, testing the waters, a little teasing taste of her that has her sucking her breath in. '_Bet Jack doesn't do this', _he thinks. Not the type, too damn far up his own ass. Makes it even sweeter, this here with her. Not that he wants to ponder Jack's sexual prowess or lack thereof right now. Not with her like this.

"Ain't nothing wrong with wanting my girl good an' properly pleasured..." Breathing coarsely against the insides of her thighs because really this gets him off too. Has never understood men who tops out at two seconds of foreplay. _Stupid bastards._ Don't know what they're missing.

"Really smooth, Sawyer," she gasps, trying to sound sarcastic. Loves how she says it. He takes time to glance up at her, noticing with satisfaction how she throws an arm across her eyes. How her ribcage rises high as she arches her back.

"Yeah well you know, devil's in the detail." Something between a gasp and a laughter escaping her throat. It's validation enough. Her dark head falling backwards, the outline of her jawbone, her pulse visible under the cream of her throat. The titillating sense of control, in steering a woman, a dominance that stems from the gentle rhythm of soft lips and fingers only. He stakes out his claim. Here. Here. And here. _Mine. All mine._

Doesn't care how fucked-up they are. She's _his._

How he's making her hum and vibrate. _She'll remember this,_ he thinks, feeling her gentle quivers against him. When he betrays her, she'll remember this. And maybe, maybe it'll make her forgive him for leaving her behind. Wants to settle so deep inside of her, make an imprint so permanent it'll be impossible for her not to take him back.

…..

He lies there afterwards. His hand still between her legs, lazily, just touching. Enjoying how sensitive she is, how every minute little movement has her gasping but not pulling away now. His cheek against her belly, as if there was something in there. A deep, almost disconcerting carnal connection to her. Like an expectant father trying to catch the movement of an unborn. Perhaps this is what makes men want to do it. Maybe this is how that urge comes on, to procreate.

When you lie down like this on her belly and feel her pulse against your face.

A thought flutters by. So ugly, so low, he's embarrassed to call it his own. _If she were pregnant_, _she wouldn't go back. _But it's true. She wouldn't risk it, not after loosing the last one. An appalling fleeting notion that kind of hitches in his mind, snags itself around the wider logic and remains there. Stuck.

Her body, peachy soft and mellow against him. Even her breathing is different now, sated, easy. Her hands in his hair. Smoothening it away from his brow, the tips of her fingers light and gentle. He takes it all in.

"There ain't no other way I'd rather end the day," he whispers because it's the kind of thing that shouldn't be said out loud.

"Mmm." Her sleepy little sound. The way she lies there, everything exposed. Not that he's complaining. A sudden jealousy at anyone, everyone who's ever had her before him. Anyone who's ever seen her like this. And most of all he resents that Jackass has had her.

"I hate that _he's_ seen you like this," he murmurs kissing her belly not knowing exactly where it comes from. Just an impulse. Lets her drag him up, pull his face towards hers. Fingers raking his hair. Lips like apricot clefts, nectar and honey. Hopes she can taste herself on him. Hopes she can feel what he feels.

How he loves her. For being this person. Strong and vulnerable. Screwed-up but struggling to put the pieces together. How he loves her even though he knows it won't end well.

"I hate that you've done this to _her_..." she says.

_Touché. _

But his relationship with Juliet. Not in the same ballpark, not even in the same universe. A lot of heart, and warmth for sure. And the sex, well, simple and uncomplicated. Mostly for human warmth and closeness. He'd never had this frustrating need to possess her. Nor this overwhelming panic at the thought of loosing her.

"Never did Sugar," a half lie because he wants her to lie to him too. Can't stand the truth. "Tell me _he_ never saw you like this."

He clambers up above her and then twists them around, so that he ends up on his back and she, sitting astride him. His favorite position in the world. Her wetness against the skin of his lower belly. Damn it. The expression on her face, the bareness, asking him to not go there. Not dig them down into something that can potentially turn ugly.

"He never did this. Not like this… never," she whispers.

And though they might both be telling half-baked quasi lies. They are a good kind of lies. A more immediate concern right now. Having her sitting up across him like this, the way her hips swell outwards, just the right amount of woman. He should get dressed again. It doesn't feel very safe at all. Her ass just in the right position. Sliding against him, across him, making it nearly impossible to refrain from entering her. Damn. Like teenagers, making out without actually doing it. How things easily picks up again and it doesn't take much. Just a little friction, her face above him, like milk and raspberries, lips kissed raw and skin pale ivory. Embarrassing how easy it is for him to get off on something like this. Before he knows it, he has climaxed against her belly, feeling like he's about sixteen again and too shy to buy condoms. She falls on top of him, rests her head on his shoulder. Something simple and mundane about his own sexual needs. Not like hers. Not this tricky slippery slope to navigate, the triumph when you manage to get her down in one piece. The sex, he's not worried about. It's the rest.

_It's just like learning to walk_, he thinks. Sure there will be stumbles and falls, but they'll get up again. But that's a lie and he knows it. It's nothing like learning to walk. This, him and her, it's like being mid-fall, having jumped off a bridge. Plunging down, the speed making your cheeks lie flat over bones. It's having time to imagine you won't be smashed against the rocks beneath. Fooling yourself because you are too scared to admit the inevitable.

"It's not gonna' last…" she mumbles into his neck. And he wants to cry at the rude crash landing. Hitting ground belly first.

"I know," he says even though this is one mathematical formula he won't succumb too, won't admit to its accuracy. How it was always doomed right from the start. Will never acknowledge it. Never. "But I don't care. We're gonna ride it out anyway."

"Yeah," she says, a little sweet yawn against his neck. "I'm sorry Sawyer. I don't know how to be… how to do this… how to make you happy."

"Shit Freckles, you've got me so bad it ain't even funny."

"And you, me," she says so softly he thinks he'll just die there and then. They are really pitiful, the two of them. On his lips, something outrageous, something unthinkable. You and me. Can't formulate the words, just the notion of it is there, like a flighty haze. Something of him and her, something promised, settled. You and me. _A home_. You and me.

A goddamn kid. Anywhere in the world. _You and me._

Impossible dream.

Like one of those insects that ought not to be able to fly but does anyway. A clumsy little bumblebee with flimsy, frail wings, aerodynamics dictating it impossible, too dumb to realize. They'll trudge on. Take pleasure where they can find it, nearness when it's offered. Try not to hurt each other too much.

He holds on to her, one hand around her cheek, the other following the ridge of her spine. Sweeping the entire length of it from her ass up to the nape of her neck.

Draws his breath in deeply, only to let go.

_Let it be what it wanna' be._ He'll ride it out. Follow her into this and stop trying to make it into something it's not. It's not perfect. It never will be. And maybe it won't last either. They are discordant and mismatched like hell. But there must be a rhythm to this, must be an ebb and a flow to her and him, and if there is, he'll figure it out. He'll learn to cope with it. Fight for it. Messy and fucked-up and far, far away from the periphery of perfect. Her hand warm, a little sweaty against his brow.

Let it go. The dream of perfection and take this, however small, what she offers.

…

_Please leave a review if you liked it, or if your didn't. Almost at the end now, almost. Though there is a lot more that could be screwed up before that :- )_


	31. In another life

_Thank you so, so much for your reviews. I'm really in the dumps right now and your comments just put a huge silver-lining on all the crap. Okay so this is me, reluctantly shuffling the story towards the end. Don't really know what to do after this is over. The writing and the posting and the reading your reactions is so addictive. Think I still have 2 or 3 chapters in me (which I've been saying forever, showing you how good I am at planning out the plot)._

_Anyway, wanted to send out a big whale of a THANKS to all of you who are still following this fic and reading it and for being so incredibly sweet all of the time._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

_Rated: M for language and sexual content._

…...

**In another life**

…...

"So you're telling me that this bozo you've been hobnobbing with is clued in Marlow?"

Henry's dry no-nonsense approach annoys him immensely this morning. Had called him to check the progress back there, but what he finds out, he doesn't really want to know.

"As clued in as can be. He's the assistant of the regional Chief of Police. I'm telling you, it's no joke," Henry says. Sawyer has no doubts that this is the truth. Has come to trust Henry's sources. The guy is a freaking genius.

Sits on the closed toilet seat in the little hotel bathroom. Luckily, she's still sleeping. He doesn't want to have her around when he speaks to Henry.

"They'd exchange her for some white collar criminal? Just like that?"

"Yeah well you know, gives them a bit of motivation to catch her. It's some hotshot guy, stole a shitload of money, corruption or something like that."

"And her photo is all over the newspapers?"

"Yeah, and about that, Hurley asked me to remind you that perhaps you have to do something about her… _well_, her appearance."

"Yeah yeah. I ain't dumb. We're lying low, tell Hurley he ain't got to worry."

"Her papers are being arranged…. I'll meet up somewhere and you know, hand everything over to you once I've got them."

"What do you mean papers?"

"New passport, identity, visa, all that stuff."

_Yeah of course. _Hugo would just take care of all that. Must be a piece of cake to him.

"Hurley is the man to go to obviously…"

"Well, all you need is money. Everything can be arranged here," Henry says and he hears him clicking his tongue as if this is a problem for him. Hell, that's how he makes his goddamn living. Slipping fat envelops under every important man's desk.

"How about the plans? Any news?"

"Not yet. Will be weeks probably, trying to find a boat and a crew."

"Miles? How's he hanging in there."

An uncomfortable silence on the line. As if this is crossing the limits for their working relationship.

"Yeah well, he's being his normal cheerful self."

"So still hating my guts huh...? Hey Henry,... I need you to do another job for me, need you to set something up. We'll share, fifty-fifty if it goes down well."

"Sure."

He'd been prepared to hard-sell the idea, to coax and badger Henry into helping him. Finds that he loves folks like Henry, who don't question money. Simple, easy people. _His kind of people._

….

She wakes up to his muffled voice from inside the bathroom. She reaches for her underwear and her t-shirt, pulling them on while her mind slowly starts clearing up.

_Maybe he didn't want to disturb her?_

Still, it unsettles her that he'd feel the need to take a phone call into another room. As if something is off. She waits until he stops talking. Opens the door without knocking, waltzing in there rubbing sleep out of her eyes as if she's just woken up.

He's standing in front of the flecked mirror. His phone is on the little ledge underneath it. The masculinity of him, how muscles move under his skin, the long ridge of his spine as he bends forward. His t-shirt on the floor, wearing only light blue boxers. The archetype of a man, his legs, strong and stable and sturdy. The way they extend from underneath his shorts, like pillars. As if nothing could faze him. That honey colored skin. She likes the fact that he's so different from Jack, from every other man she's ever been with.

He's lathering up, white foam covering the lower part of his face. Twists his head when she comes in, gives her a pink clownish grin among all the white cream.

"Look who finally decided to join me… Come on in Honey!"

The 'honey'. The blatant couple-hood of this, as if he can't wait to cement the rickety, probably faulty structure that they are building. Sloppily, with old crappy material, no concern for safety or comfort. As if it doesn't scare him one bit. A lot braver than her.

The gravitation towards him, the need to touch him and the realization that she can, that he is for her now. Sneaks up behind him, draws her arms around his waist and pushes her mouth in there, the tender skin behind his jaw, beneath his ear, a little sticky from shaving foam. Breathing him in. Hers. Not Juliet's, hers. At least she can pretend, now, standing here like this, his hair tickling her face, his warm skin under her sprawling hands.

Wants to slide them down, be _that _kind of girl.

"Well ain't this a nice surprise?" He grabs hold of her arms across his midriff. Holds them there firmly with one hand wrapped around both wrists and turns his face, just enough to meet her lips. A twisted awkward kind of kiss, shaving foam smudging off on her chin. His hair a little humid, smelling like soap and god. It smells of him. Come, come, come, she thinks. Wants him. Now. Wishes she could just say so. That she could be more like him, could just grab him by the hands and pull him out towards the bed.

"Morning… Did you just wake up?"

"Yeah, just thought I'd clean up a little. Don't wanna' chafe your skin off." Returns his attention to the mirror, shaving lanes in the white across his jaw. The skin bronzed underneath. His presence that makes the rest of the room shimmer. Even this ugly bare bathroom with it's dirt-green tiled walls. She fingers the tips of his hair already sweeping his shoulders. The color of wet sand, the ends bleached a paler shade of gold.

"How about that haircut?" she says resting her chin on his shoulder, borrowing a move from him when she watches him in the mirror. Lips stealing a little taste of his skin there, warm gingery brown just above his collar bone. How he shines up when she does that. The stab at the pit of her stomach when she realizes that she does this to him. That it takes so little from her to make him happy.

"Sure, knock yourself out!" He glances at her through the mirror, eyes glittering. That other haircut, so long ago. Wants to give him something else, right now. The sheer maleness of this, him shaving, intimate and sensual. And that she can just walk in here, and take him. _Just like that._ That it makes him happy.

"Okay, we'll get a scissor and a comb somewhere today."

Come, she wants to say, come back to bed. Who cares if the hair is long or if they need to leave soon or even if they're out of protection. Wants his weight on her. Wants to loose herself in him. At the moment it seems worth the risk.

"You mean Jackass missed that? Hell, thought he got the entire shop…"

_Oh._ A sure buzz kill, bringing up Jack. It pisses her off. It should be a buried topic and she wonders if he'll ever let it go or if this was always part of his attraction to her. The triumph, the glee of stealing a woman from the Doc.

"Just do me a favor James, no more Jack-talk… okay?"

He regards her silently for an instant. Face hard, blank and indecipherable.

"Alright, as you wish," reluctantly giving in. " Have just one question for you and then I'll never mention the damn bastard again."

"Shoot," she says meekly and swipes her hand up and down his abdomen to soften the blow, wanting to slide them down his shorts, bring him onto other thoughts. He keeps working the razor in tight short stripes across his left cheek. His other hand reaching down to stop her fingers from distracting him.

"Hey, I'll cut myself if you go any further down Darling." he mutters, a short pause before he assaults her. "So why the hell did you two lovebirds break up?"

She retracts her arms from him. This frontal attack, she wasn't prepared for it. Takes a few steps back, slumping down on the closed seat of the toilet while he continues shaving as if this doesn't really concern him. As if he hasn't said anything out of place.

"What… well… it wasn't exactly working out. With Aaron, and the drugs and…" She stutters and stumbles over the words, because truth is, she never really knew what went wrong, except that it wasn't for her. She wasn't right for him and he, he was too frail, too much. Not enough. Just that he wasn't this man, the one standing in this crummy bathroom with her, firing away impossible questions.

"That ain't all it was to it, was it?" His shoulder blades, the tanned skin stretched over them, moving as he rinses the foam off his fingers, impatient, sloppy movements. It's infuriating how all she can think of is the way his buttocks fill out the boxers just the right way, that dip at the base of his spine, everything a light caramel brown. How she can be so drawn to someone as aggravating as him.

"No okay, you arrogant son of a bitch. It was about you too alright? That's what you want to hear?"

He turns around, his mouth stretching from ear to ear looking good enough to eat. He's such an immature, juvenile prick. That's all he was fishing for?

"Oh yeah… like _how _so?" Squinting at her, as if he's some kind of super duper CIA interrogator extracting top secret material. Still traces of shaving foam like little smudges of cream in his face.

"He… he caught me on the phone with Cassie… after that it sort of fell apart."

"So what? What do you mean 'caught'! What was the big goddamn deal? You weren't exactly two timing him? Were you?" That last cautious 'were you' makes her want to smack him. _Asshole._

"He wanted to know what it was about and… well all of that seemed kind of private, I… I _couldn't_..."

"Why the hell not? Not like I ever asked you to keep it a secret for me."

Leans back over the washbasin to splash some more water over his face. A sloppy, furious kind of rubbing that wets the entire floor beneath him. Splatter of water across his shoulders too.

"I don't know." Shit, hates him for having this effect upon her. " I... maybe, I just .. liked the idea of having something of you. Just for me."

Mortifying, to have to confess this. She just feels like an idiot. There had been no real reason. He turns around eyes smiling above a towel that covers the rest of his face as he pats it dry.

"Well, hell if that ain't downright romantic Freckles," he sniggers into the towel.

She knows he's just mocking her, just making fun of her. And that underneath it all, he's just thrilled. Overjoyed that he was part of the reason why she and Jack hadn't worked out. It's just the kind of information that feeds his flimsy macho ego.

"Well, right now, you got all of me – just for you," he says, sauntering towards her, just dropping the hand towel on the floor. "Ain't that something?"

"Yeah…" Can't help grinning back to him. He looks the kind of rotten character who'd lure the frail heroine astray in a romance novel. "Yeah, what a lucky girl I am."

But she's no frail heroine, far from it. He reaches for her, draws her up standing. His hands on her hips, sneaking up under the t-shirt holding her around her waist. And the smugness, the playfulness melts away. He looks at her and it's all him. _No act._ Holds her there at arms length.

"Hey, you know… Ain't nothing you can't say to me. When you're not in the mood… it's not the end of the world. You call all the shots." And he looks so earnest, as if she were worth all this trouble. A quiet kind of dignity, almost formal, the way he addresses her. Stunning. This is new. This talking, saying what he feels, meaning what he says. It makes her think that he can handle it. How she is not enough and never will be. How she can't always explain why she reacts like she does.

"You think I got rid of the condoms, don't you?"

"No." But it's so short. So clipped, she knows she's onto something.

"Yeah you did, you big dumb oaf! You thought I didn't want to so I dumped them somewhere along the road _didn't _you?"

"No." He repeats and the way he looks down, a little chagrined grin. She knows she's hit the nail on its head.

"You're an idiot." Her palm sweeping across his cheek. Just wants to feel the texture, newly shaved, strangely soft. He looks younger like this, without the stubble. Younger and breakable, as if he wounds easily. A man to tread carefully around, handle with kid gloves, not as tough as he wants to appear. And it's strange to consider that she has that power over him. Frightening and thrilling too.

"Just saying. You don't have to worry. Ain't a disaster if you don't wanna screw every minute of the day… " He makes himself look sweet. Softening lines, the way dimples dig in as if he were positively angelic. Smirking, the lip, the one that is split in the middle, the gash not as angrily red today. Wants to taste him.

"Please just shut up." Her hands behind his neck and a hard tug to make him lean down. His mouth, sweet and sharp at the same time, a trace of shaving foam lingering. The masculine fragrance stinging her nose a little.

…

It's still bright and early when they hit the potholed sidewalk, hand in hand, walking like school children. She's still wearing the dumb nightgown. Better get her some other stuff to wear. Some tunics or something else, hell he doesn't know. Not like he's ever bothered much with women's clothing except to get them off as fast as possible. They track down a drugstore first and he stands back when she literally fills her arms with an assortment of condoms.

"That's quite a stash Freckles."

"Yeah well…" she says with a little apologetic smile. A little embarrassed when she dumps them on the counter in front of the cashier, a middle aged woman that eyes the two of them suspiciously. The decadence of the West and all that.

"It'll last us till retirement age Darling, are you sure we need all of that?" Picks up a few packs of smokes just so that the lady won't take them for perverts. Which probably only makes her think they're _unhealthy_ perverts too.

"No, but… you know. Better be prepared." She folds her arms across her chest and smiles. That wonderful smile she has. Wants her to always look like that. Always. No more tears from her, just this.

"You're a regular girl-scout."

…

He sits grouchily on the chair they've pulled out into the little dank bathroom, hearing the snippety-snip of her scissors. Nail scissors of all things. It doesn't feel totally A-grade okay but he doesn't want to stop her either. Has no urge to leave the hotel. _Ever again. _Loves the tow of them like this, bickering and arguing over trivial things. Just a way to delay the inevitable.

"Hey, not too short."

"Yeah it's either _this _or that razor over there so I suggest you just clam it Buddy."

"_Wooh, _tough cookie," he says and sniffs her as she rounds him, placing herself between his knees. "Though I reckon a razor might do a better job than the goddamn nail scissors."

His hands on her hips and she swats them away, irritably.

"Yeah… you know what…? You want to look like Rod Stewart or not?"

"Can't say I'm all that eager…"

"Then keep your hands to yourself."

"Hey… _screw_ the haircut Sugarbubs."

"It's only half done… and…"

"If we're gonna' work our way down your stash then we better get started baby. No time to laze around."

"Well it's _you're _hair, I'm not going to be held responsible…" she starts but he hushes her with his lips. Effectively shutting down all thoughts of anything else.

He stands up and takes the scissors and the comb away from her, tossing them on the bathroom floor. Manhandles her into the bedroom where his authority ends and hers begins. A little unused to this from her. How she takes charge completely and how for some unfathomable reason she doesn't seem the least shy about it. It's fast and not as elaborate as he might have wanted it. The pace she chooses is like a damn freight train and he has to rush everything to be able to keep up with her. A little brazen, a little rough, not letting him dominate. They're a bit out of synch but then again. Wouldn't want it any other way than this. Her letting go completely, obviously delighting in him, his body. He warms himself under the heat of her eyes on his skin. How she pulls up, apart from him to look at him, glancing down at the intersection, where they are joined together.

Afterwards he lies there with her head beneath his chin, her hair spread out across his chest. His fingers stroking the small of her back down the curve of her ass.

"I could lie here all day but I've gotta' run Darling."

She doesn't move an inch, just lies there. Pretends that she hasn't heard him. He gently moves her away, wedges his pillow in under her cheek in his place.

"Gotta' do some shopping before we hit the road," he murmurs, reaching down. Her lips like they've lost all sting. Only have softness left. The freckles in the sharp sunlight from the window.

"Okay… wait up. I'll come." Scrambles to get up, reaching for her clothes on the floor.

"No, it's private. Gotta' do this on my own. You stay here and relax a bit. You're the one who's gotta' drive after all."

"You gonna' go out like that? With your hair like that?"

He checks his horrible haircut in the mirror mounted on one of the ugly wardrobes but he doesn't care much.

"Best haircut ever Honey. I'll wear it like this from now on," he says with an exaggerated buttery sweetness that has her poking her tongue at him.

"That can be arranged."

Dresses in front of her, buckling his belt while she watches. Lying there with her head sinking into the too soft pillow, the edge of the sheet covering her hips only. Her body like a work of art. Muscular and proportionate. He puts on his baseball cap, and leans down to kiss her goodbye on the nose. Narrowly escaping her hands grappling to pull him back down onto the bed.

"There will be more of that later."

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you."

…...

He comes back with a bunch of plastic bags, not nice shopping bags like Jack's but black PVC, the type used for garbage. He sits down heavily on the bed. The sound of springs complaining underneath him. His arms resting on his knees. Legs wide apart, shoes moving uncertainly. Strangely uncomfortable when he gestures dumbly at the bags.

"Bought you some stuff."

She smiles at him. Sneaks him a quick peck on the cheek before she carefully opens the plastic bags. Peeping in them, seems like he's gotten her some clothes. Probably big tent-like things that he deems appropriate for her. Her hand inside the bag touches something. Like an animal.

"Hair! You bought me a wig?"

Fishes it up, wrinkling her nose, holding it between her fingers, away from her as if he's just gifted her a dead rodent.

"Yeah, well, I thought… _Fuck, _you ain't dyeing it blonde. Thought a wig would make more sense."

"I'll look like Shanghai-Sue Sawyer!" Holds it up in front of herself. It's a short shiny black bob with a straight cut fringe.

"Just try it on Sweetcheeks!"

She escapes into the little bathroom. Has some problems with tucking her own curls in. Sneaks her head around the door expecting to be met by his snigger. But he's quiet. Says nothing where he sits exactly where she'd left him, at the foot of the bed. His eyes warm on her, running his tongue along his teeth.

"Does it look okay?" she asks, though she knows she looks preposterous.

"You fishing for compliments Darling?"

"Maybe…"

He runs his hand through his hair, brushing it away from his face. Something glimmering on the fourth finger.

_Gold._

A plain gold-band. And it makes her swallow hard. He catches her eyes on his hand, smile widening when he realizes that she's staring at it.

"Yours is in the small bag, cheap gaudy thing and I bet that gold will rub off if you so much as dip it into water. But try it on for size baby girl, it's about time I made an honest woman out of you." Leers at her, and she can't help it. She knows this is part of the disguise and that it's smarter for them to pose as a married couple, especially in this country. Still, her heart beats as if he's just proposed to her. _Stupid. She's just a stupid girl._

She fumbles with a little shoddy plastic box flipping the lid open, his gaze on her making her even more jittery. The ring is like his, just smaller and slightly narrower. He reaches for her, takes her wrist in his hand and pulls her towards him, between his knees. Shoves the ring on, roughly, hurting her knuckles a little. Can't help holding out her hand in front of her to take in the strange sight.

"Don't get soppy on me girl, we _ain't _married for real."

"I know that," she retorts dryly, feeling silly for the fleeting weakness. The harebrained little girl within who swoons at the thought of wearing his ring.

He draws her down on the bed with him. They end up lying there side by side. His fingers entangling themselves with hers, weaving in between. Holds her hand up above them. Turning it, as if inspecting the effect ofthat ring on her finger.

"So… how would you wanna' celebrate your wedding night China Blue?"

"You call me that again, you'll celebrate it without your teeth buddy."

"Ain't a problem, don't need teeth for what I wanna' do to you."

…..

They leave right before lunch, he's eager to be on the road again. She lets him drive for a change, just so that she can sit there and watch him. His hands on the steering wheel. That banal symbol for couplehood, the fake wedding ring standing out like a sore thumb.

"So, where are we going Sawyer?"

"Now, we make our way to Yogyakarta… and then we'll see."

"Okay."

"So you like the ring huh Peanut?" Taunting her, dimples pushing deep into his cheeks and she can't deny it. How the rings link them together, however fake or meaningless they are. Pretends to be above it all, sticks her nose in the air and watches the Javanese countryside unfold through the open car window. The wind caressing her cheeks. Smiling because right now, right here. _All is good._

…..

They spend their first night in Yogyakarta at a little cozy hotel with a super nosy landlady. They have all intentions of staying just for that one night and then find a long-term solution. But fact is, they get caught up in the warmth of this woman, how she draws them in. Two people who have received far too little affection. Her warm, busybody way, how she somehow takes them on, as if they were children in her house. It's irresistible to them. Within a week, she's rented out a little pavilion to them, situated behind her own home on its own little plot. It's a little bit more private than the hotel, because once she finds out that they are newly weds, there is nothing stopping her.

Yogyakarta's provincial charm wins them over completely. Something of small town over the bustling city center with its low buildings and winding alleys. A water and gas depot next door to them, supplementing their business by turning the place into an outdoor eating-place by night. On the other side is a carpenter shop.

Their landlord Ibu Sri is probably in her sixties, but she could be any age really, a timeless quality about her. She's regal and obviously well educated, her English as flawless as it could be. She has a breathless, hurried way of speaking as if she knows she'll never have time to say all the things she wants to. She's a widow and lives alone with two boys in their early teens of whom she seems fiercely protective. Her grandsons, two almost identical strapping young men with smooth nougat colored skin and the frail beginnings of tentative mustaches.

She immediately makes Sawyer and Kate and everything about them her private business. Wants to know every little thing about them, from how they met till how they got married and why on earth they are traveling around like backpackers instead of setting up a home and producing some fine-looking babies. So they lie and lie and then they lie some more.

Kate dutifully wears her stupid wig, the nerdy glasses from Jack too and Ibu Sri must wonder what on earth a looker like Sawyer is doing with Thelma's geeky sister.

…

The first few days in Yogyakarta pass in a blur. They don't do much, it all just stands still. Maybe they need to get back their bearings, he doesn't know. They spend far too much time in bed, even when they are not having sex, they lie there for hours. As if they are exhausted, lethargic. Trying to catch up, get back on track. It's sleepy and slow and the strange thing is that for once, they seem to be on exactly the same place. Only difference is that she sleeps a whole lot. He worries it's too much, the way she'll drift off, almost every time after they've made love. He ribs her about it, claims that it's the guy's prerogative and that she ought to be keyed up and rearing to go again.

"Why? Cause you're such a _dreamboat_ in bed? I should never get enough of you? Is that what you're saying?"

He isn't quite sure she's teasing when she does that thing. Her face perfectly straight, doesn't betray anything.

"Yeah well… you know…"

Nuzzles up close to him, burrowing her face in his armpit region in a way that makes him way too self-conscious.

"You trying to make yourself pass out Darling?"

"No."

"Well then, get the _hell_ out of my armpit!" He tries shifting her but she clings to him like a damn barnacle.

"I'm fine here." She chortles when his fingers dig into her sides. He loves when she sounds like that. Her ugly, little snorting giggle, it just makes him melt. "You smell fine Sawyer, stop worrying!"

"It aint' normal Freckles. Something wrong with you…" he grumbles, trying to secretly smell himself. He's pretty sure he stinks of sweat and tobacco. But she sure doesn't seem too bothered by it. She doesn't answer. Just lies there, on her side, the view of how her waist dips down and then rises in a gentle tilt towards the hips. Women. He'll never understand them. Will never understand her.

"So _am_ I…?" Bites his lip, trying to sound somewhat cool and indifferent, as if it's all a big joke.

"Are you _what_?"

"You know… a… _dreamboat_?"

She laughs so hard , twisting him around with such reckless abandon, they both roll out of bed. They end up hitting the floor in a graceless mess. Her whole body still in convulsions and he can't help it. He's not laughing with her.

"I guess _that's_ my goddamn answer," he says bitterly.

He knows she'll kiss him if he sulks. She'll reach for him and run her lips across his. Let her tongue slip out just a little, taste him. And she does.

" I don't know about 'dreamboat', but you're definitely a canoe… well at the very least a dinghy." Her face so close, but there is no mistaking the wicked glint in her eyes. Knows exactly how to play him.

"_Hardiharhar_... I'll make you pay for that girl, just you wait."

…..

After a few of those sleepy days it shifts and they become something else. Wired and highly charged and sexual to the brink of overdoing it. There are days when he has to put the breaks on, has to remind her that a man of his age needs a little recovery time in between. Those days when they are out of balance but just enough to turn the temperature up. There are those sorts of days, when they can't get close enough. Impatient, edgy, so acutely aware of each other every single second. So heated, so insistent it wears him out completely.

Then there are the times when love flows easily. When they don't question it. When they play and toy with each other. When their little pavilion is light and when the two of them goofing around can be heard all the way over to their landlords house. The rings might be faker than three dollar bills but it has an effect upon them that he doesn't really want to admit to, even to himself. Fusing them together, as if they weren't a lie. As if they'd indeed exchanged some kind of vows for real.

How they will take care of each other, in a way unfamiliar to both of them. Her hand that will cup his cheeks in a tender gesture, like you'd stroke the face of a small child, not a lover. How they will do things for each other that are unnecessary and banal. Just because she hasn't ever had that and he hasn't for such a long time. Maybe because that's what they need.

He makes a double turn the first time she puts toothpaste on his toothbrush and leaves it on the washbasin with a glass of water. Just about to make a snide remark of how she might be hinting at bad breath when he realizes that she's babying him. How she'll pair his socks up, because he can never find a matching pair.

And it blows him away. How good it feels. Her hand on his brow as he falls asleep, the ghost of his mother. Something so far back in his past, he doesn't really have a memory of it. Just something that is etched into his skin, his cells. How it feels right. The fluttering sensation of holding a hand in his, much larger and how it feels to clasp his fingers around it. Just a shadow of a recollection, but that's how it feels.

He does it too, in his own clumsy way. Will still draw her a bath, might even crouch down next to her and help her wash her hair. Not because she can't do it herself. But he likes the quiet intimacy of it. How she trusts him, just leans her head back like a spoiled brat, so certain he'll never get soap in her eyes. He buys her food, almost every evening, the pleasure in feeding her, providing for her. Comes home with the typical little brown packages from the street vendors. Loves to watch her eat. Her despicable manners in sharp contract with her appearance.

'I love you'. He repeats it soundlessly in his own mind, so many times, uncountable times during these days together. Thinks that soon, he'll be able to say them out loud, every time the mood strikes. Soon it will be easy.

In the mornings , if she wakes before him, she'll tip toe out. Will scuttle down the street and buy him steaming hot coffee that the vendor pours into their little thermos and the deep fried sweet potatoes he likes so much. Will bring the hot little package right back to bed, unfold the greasy paper wrap, under his nose, so that he wakes up sniffing the air like a dog. They'll eat in bed, get the crispy batter all over the sheets and on their skins.

Those mornings when they will lie in bed side by side. Her head on his arm making it a little difficult to hold onto the newspaper as he reads it out aloud to her. A two day old Jakarta Daily, the only news they can find in English. That's when she does her best to distract him. Will turn her face up towards him, press her lips against his chin and run her hand between his legs making him ball the whole damn paper up and chuck it randomly behind him. One of these mornings. When they are alright. When nothing bad can reach them.

_Nothing._

….

Afterwards she lies spread eagled across him, still joined together. Her nose, poking his ear, her fingers lacing in between his, hands resting on his chest. The way her tips smooth over the wedding band, unconscious of it. Focusing on nothing else.

"I love you," she whispers. He can't help it, breaks out laughing, making her wobble on top of him. _It's just so unexpected._

She pulls away, a little hurt. Humiliated. Rolling off him to the side. He slides the condom off, disposing of it in a tissue on the bedstand.

"It's the ring, ain't it Freckles?"

"What?" She reaches down for the sheet, to cover up.

"It's what makes you say it."

"No."

"If I'd known it'd have that effect on you Sweets, I'd have slipped some cheap rock on your finger a long time ago."

"It's _not_ the ring!"

She shoots him down with one of those looks.

"Ain't got to feel bad about it."

The glee, letting the smile play across his face, loves how he gets to her, so easily.

"It's _not_ the ring you asshole."

He lies there, shamelessly exposed, holds his hands in front of him. Twirls the ring around on his finger. Toying with it, with her.

"Feel like saying it again dontcha'?" She surrenders to him, throws herself over him.

"Admit it, it just _does_ it for you, doesn't it?"

"Stop talking Sawyer!"

….

And maybe he had thought that this, living together, being together all of the time would cure him of his obsession with her. Would make reason win over emotion. But instead of sobering up, it gets worse. So pathetically invested in her does he become that he starts entertaining these ridiculous fantasies. Knowing damn well they have no place in the real world, no place at all in her life where everything is intangible, uncertain and unpredictable.

But he can't stop it, how they sneak upon him when he's the most vulnerable. When he lies there watching her sleep or marvels over how she can massacre a perfectly fine sandwich in seconds. Tearing into it as if she's a wild beast. Her frantic channel surfing even though they only have seven goddamn channels, all in Indonesian and all equally unappealing. How she'll wiggle her toes when she lies there on the bed with the remote clasped in her hand as if that's the only thing keeping her alive.

That's when his mind wanders, when his heart feels soft and far, far too susceptible to her. Dreaming of a future for them. One where they'll be like this. And soon, very soon, in a matter of days in fact, he can no longer make fun of her and her reaction to the rings.

_Because fuck. _He feels it too.

And he's never been one to give into the romantic notions of marriage. Certainly never been naïve about it. Has known since he was eight years old that marriage fucks people up in a serious way. Hell, he's seen more examples of how goddamn awful human beings can be to one another within the realms of the holy matrimony than he has in prison. All those women he picked, all of them so easy to sway, so easy to lead astray. Imagines that's what time will inevitably do to any couple sooner or later. And he's not stupid enough to believe that they are any different. They certainly are no better people than all the rest. Still, he finds himself thinking, that hell. If anyone could make it. It'd be the two of them. If only because he has never met a man as fucking insanely hooked on someone as he is on her. Never.

He sneaks out while she's in the shower. Draws his shirt on and ties his shoes as he hears her, whistling horribly from within. _God_, she really is tone deaf. Considers going in there to join her, but then again. He has his mind set on something. Something he finds himself almost obsessing about.

...

She sits outside drinking a lukewarm soda from a can. In the shade, on the little stone terrace, her ass firmly on the door step when he comes swaggering across the gravel-covered footpath towards their pavilion. It's already theirs, after just a few days. Has what looks like a boom-box in his hand, dangling it by his thigh, and if it were still the nineties that's what she'd have guessed on too. The sun is high in the sky, burning his shadow into the terrace as he takes one step up.

"Hi honey, I'm home!" he says in a sing-song kind of voice. It doesn't help. She's still upset he'd just disappeared like that.

"It's been three hours," she mutters, hugging her knees. Can't admit to it, but the fear that one day he'll just up and leave. It's always there, no matter what he says or does.

"I reckon you've missed me then…" he leers, standing right in front of her. "Wanna' go inside and make up for lost time."

...

"Nope." She holds her knees harder against her chest, eyes mulishly on her feet her hair covering her shoulders, hanging down all the way to her elbows. Crazily curly in Yogyakarta's humidity, little tight ringlets at the ends. She's not wearing her wig today, far too hot. Just hopes their landlady or one of the neighbors won't be dropping by unannounced.

"Aw come on, I'll show you what I've gotten you."

"Not interested," she says dryly.

"Not even a little?"

"Nope."

He sidesteps her and goes into dump the things on the bed. Fishes up a cassette from the plastic bag he's brought. The silhouette of her against the glaring bright light outside, sitting there absolutely still on the doorstep. Plugs the recorder into the outlet and turns it on. _Loud. _Ray Charles' _'Come rain or come shine'_.

Sees how she jumps at the sound of the music blaring out into the room, spilling through the open door. But she doesn't turn. Not done punishing him yet. The music is sentimental as hell, but he'd seen it in a downtown flea market. Amongst all the local fares, pirated DVD's sold alongside beautifully crafted hand painted batik. A pile of old jazz cassettes and the crappy outdated recorder and he'd not been able to resist. And this song, well he's a soppy old fool but the lyrics just has his heart swelling.

Has a silly wish to dance with her. And it's stupid because it's hot and it's in the middle of the day. This music that should be played in the dark sultry night while making love. Well, he's planning on doing that too. But right now, he wants her, rocking gently with him in the shade of their little sanctuary. Wants to hear her laughter when she steps on his toes as he has no doubt she will. Comes up from behind, almost lifts her to her feet, and it's easy. She doesn't resist when he swivels her around, arms unyielding around her waist, and she doesn't fight it. Places her own around his neck. They dance, if you could call it that. Her barefoot on the cool terrazzo floor and him, in his heavy work shoes trying not to crush her little stubby toes.

He bends his head over her and can't help mouthing the lyrics, knowing damn well how corny this is. Plasters on a big old grin so that she won't think he's taking it seriously. That it means anything.

_"I'm gonna' love you like nobody's loved you, come rain or come shine."_

And he's no singer but he knows his voice isn't all that bad. And for all the potential cheesiness of it, he notices how she draws her breath in. Uncertain ground. He knows she wants to laugh, wants to turn it into a joke. Maybe it's the lyrics, they hit too close to home. Waits for her snorting snigger but it doesn't come. Feels how her body becomes mellow and pliable, following him perfectly as if they'd practiced this for years. This slow, lazy dance, door still open out towards the garden. The heat wafting in to the pavilion in gushes of warm air. Loves her then. Like she's a part of him. The part that wants to move on, forward, wants to be better. Wants to put the kind of mark on the world that doesn't wrench the heart out of someone's chest.

How they sway, a grip around each other as if they might fly away of they don't hold on tight enough. Her hips grinding against his upper thighs. Can feel her hipbones, dipping with each soft step. He shuts up, let goof old Ray sing on his own. They way it was supposed to be sung. He can't do that. But he can do this, can dance with her. Make her happy, at least for the moment.

_'You're gonna love me like nobody's loved me_

_Come rain or come shine_

_Happy together, unhappy together_

_And won't that be fine_

_Days may be cloudy or sunny_

_We're in or we're out of the money_

_I'm with you always_

_I'm with you, rain or shine'_

Her head heavy on his shoulder. Stroking his neck carefully and slowly. And he knows she's listening too. It makes him smile, this unexpected bridge between them, some things they can't say, the things it's better to leave to Ray. The tension climbing too high for comfort, it's got to be diffused and she does it with such lack of grace he cracks up completely. Lets out a burp that could blow out a small fire.

"Sorry, too much soda," she says, that goofy smile hidden behind an apologetic hand. He loosens his grip around her and forces her hand away. Wants to see her when she's like that.

"You want me to pat your back too Darling? Burp you properly?"

Bittersweet, the memory of how she'd walked across the living room in the house in Bali, Aaron upright against her shoulder, her rhythmical patting of his back. Rubbing his little spin to make him comfortable.

_I'd marry you,_ he thinks. Would too, if there was even a chance of them making it.

….

There are many of those days, the easy ones. But every now and then they get one of the dark ones too. These are the days when she can't be touched, when she'll pull back, duck and dodge. These suffocating days when even the best intentions cannot break through. When his hands are enemies and the barriers are so thick you can do nothing but wait for them to crumble.

She doesn't want to talk about it. The future. Doesn't want to talk about large parts of the past. Holding him hostage in the can't be helped. It's just what it is. He has to learn to live with this too, the great pink elephant in the room that he has to pretend he can't se. She won't talk about anything substantial. At all. If he ever dares cross that line, she'll pretend she has to use the restroom, she'll fiddle around with the remote, a dumb open mouthed expression on her face. She'll steer clear of him, will shun any attempt at getting close. And if that doesn't work she'll try to distract him. Will sidle up close to him, will straddle his lap and slither deceitful hands inside his shirt. Will kiss him and press her breasts against him.

_Anything, not to have to talk._

And he can hardly blame her, when he can't give away anything. Keeps his secrets close at heart himself and maybe she senses that. How he won't let her go to the island. His plan, to set her up, somewhere safe and leave her there. He'll sneak away, find a way to leave her behind. But right now he can't think further ahead than his next cigarette, his next meal, the next time they can sink into each other.

….

The money from Hurley dwindles down quickly. Maybe they're not careful enough. Maybe he wants too much for her. And though he talks to him almost every fucking days, there is no way in hell he can bring himself to ask for more.

At first he doesn't tell her. Thinks he'll find the right way to talk to her, the rest won't be so difficult. She'll see what has to be done. Will understand that he has no choice, that it has nothing to do with them. But it's late, it's getting too late and the damn Claire-rescue plan is obviously taking its sweet time. He can't last much longer. Chooses and evening when they are sitting on the terrace on the doorstep, hip against hip, his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close to him. Staring at the dense large rain drops falling fatly against the ground. The smell of fertile earth and life. Sharing a cigarette and ice tea from the street in a plastic bag with a straw in it. Doesn't know why, but it feels like such a luxury, sitting here with her, sharing in these cheap treasures. The air thick with the scent of rain and clove tobacco.

He's got to be man enough to speak to her at least. _Come rain, come shine_. And it's definitely raining now. Literally and figuratively. He blurts it out the very second he passes the smoke to her.

"I have to go back... to Bali."

She fumbles with the cigarette, but doesn't drop it. Turning her face towards him and there is no place to hide from this. Her eyes; bottomless, inscrutable. Too close to him.

"What? Why!"

Lifts his hand to stroke her jaw with his thumb. Thinking that if he kisses her now, if he takes her breath away, she won't ask so many damn questions.

"I have... well there is a project waiting. I could need the money, ain't done a job in ages..." Slips closer, bending his head towards her, breathes against her upper lip. Nips at it, pulling it in between his teeth and she seems to thaw at first, kissing back, a thick syrupy kind of desire that has him jubilant. 'I love you'. Would never hurt her. Only he has to.

"What do you mean_ 'project'_?" Twists her face a little, halfheartedly withdrawing from his kiss.

"You know... what I do," he says a little sheepishly.

She tears his hand away, shrugs his arm off. A furious spark that makes her puff her chest out. Lips pinched.

"You have a mark, don't you? How did you ever find one here?" Shoots up standing above him and he has to bend his neck back almost ninety degrees to be able to look at her.

"Yeah, well, alright. Yep, got a mark and I need this job. We need this job to work out 'cause frankly we're a little low on funds..."

"But Hurley... he would help us. You don't have to do that." She sucks on the cigarette, nothing more but the filter left. Flings the rest out in the rain. "_Damn_ you Sawyer!"

"So I'll live on charity like some useless schmuck...?"Raises his voice too, trying to match the fury in hers. Something in between irritation and defensiveness. He knows she's right but it's not that fucking simple. She if someone should understand the need for him to keep his pride even if there is nothing about him to be proud of. _Nothing._

"No, no of course you're right. Better swindle the panties off some rich woman than let a friend help you. Much less humiliating."

She's right. _He's a nobody._ A good-for-nothing, useless son of a bitch. No education to speak of, no vocation, no skills. Nothing, except this. To screw his way into money.

"It ain't like that. It ain't all I do..." Though truthfully, how many cons has he pulled that didn't involve wooing some hapless bored trophy wife? Like one to the dozen, and always pretty small pickings, men not a fraction as susceptible to his charms as women. His looks making men suspicious rather than relaxed. No, she's right – who the hell does he think he's fooling?

"Okay, so you're telling me there won't be any need for you to wine and dine and go down on some random woman to make her sign over her life's savings to you?"

His silence is enough. _No. _No he can't promise her that. Wants to say something useless that it doesn't matter and that he is hers. But who is he kidding? He'd kill the guy who laid a finger on her, let alone brought her to bed.

"Really, you'd do that? Go and charm the dough out of some rich woman? Now?"

"That's what I do Honey. You knew that all along. That's who I am."

Feels the anxiousness augmenting by the second. How her eyes flicker at him and away. Unsure now, can't argue with him because he's never lied to her about this.

"That's not who you are anymore…"

"And why is that?"

Wants to hear_ 'because of us, because of this'_.

"Let me talk to Hurley... I, I don't want to... I couldn't share you."

"It ain't like that. No one could have what we have... it's like theater. Just acting." Banalities, and he knows that somehow he has lost. Doubts that he'll be able to now. Already pictures himself crawling up to Hurley, neck bent and asking for another hand-out. Can't risk this, not for money, not for anything. The only thing worth risking loosing her over, her safety. And even that has him wavering.

"No," she says as if it was final. No point in discussing it further.

"No? _Great_, just fill me in once you have another brilliant plan what we are gonna' do for a living."

It's one of those nights that ends in sullen silence, backs turned against each other. Too scared to break through the barriers. It lasts as long as it usually does with them, right until the early morning hours, when they float between dream and consciousness, moving closer without realizing it. Waking up with arms and limbs trying to hold onto each other. Forgiveness is near, how easy it can be at times.

"What about…what about you and me?"

"If you want it you've got to say the words Kate. I'm tired of doing all the goddamn work here."

"Okay then," she says huffily. Glaring at him in the relative darkness of their room. "I don't want you going off to sleep with some woman. I don't want it and I won't have any of it."

He tries to resist smiling. Though he's lost this one. He's won something else.

"Okay okay miss Bossyboots, you've got it, I'll crawl to the cross and speak to Hurley. But I want something in return!"

"Alright, _shoot._"

"First of all, no more fucking second guessing this. It's exhausting!"

She looks at him suspiciously, just nodding in a way that tells him, it'll be nearly impossible for her to honor that agreement.

"You've got me in your pocket. I'm yours and I'll stick to you like a goddamn leech as long as humanly possible, tag along as far as I can."

A half-assed commitment, but a lot for him, for them. Wants to say the rest, that sweet piece of truth just waiting to roll off his tongue.

_If he could, he'd marry her in a jiffy. _Would drag her doubting ass down the aisle this very morning. Sign his worthless fucking life over to her this second.

Would set her up somewhere safe, work like an idiot to find some other source of income. Have a mundane boring life with her. Safe. Imagines they'd fight, scream and throw things across the house. Then have make-up sex, , would laugh, goof around and try to make babies. Maybe a whole bunch of them or at least one so that if they'd ever loose one another, they'd at least have that. Some mark on the world. Something good, something that isn't soiled, isn't dirty.

…..

He doesn't think it through. It's not something he consciously plans, but somewhere along the line he starts getting forgetful. Can never remember to buy the fucking condoms and if he does, hell, he'll be damned if he can ever remember where he put them. Starting to hate the pesky little things, the inevitable moment when they have to break apart to put it on, the disturbance in the intimacy. Hates the practical logic of them, the shield between her and him. How they can't give in to the total abandon of the physical.

_But it's more than that._

How she, she is so meticulous about them. She even buys her own stash. saunters off to the little utility store down the road, probably has the whole city sniggering behind her back as she buys up the entire stock of raffled, extra large and the plain utilitarian. Any type they've got. Only whores buy condoms here. But she doesn't care. Prefers being called a whore to the alternative.

It doesn't take long for him to start resenting her paranoia. Thinking that goddamnit, it's her and him now and would it be so crazily wrong if an_ 'accident'_ happened?

One of those nights, when they drink a lot of beer sitting cross legged on the bed, a stack of cards between them, playing a game they both know they will never finish. Instead tumbling down on top of the glossy cards, clothes shed. The satisfaction of flinging them, tossing them across the room. Him sitting up at the foot of the bed, her astride him. His erection nudging at her and an urgent clasp around her hips, hands begging her to sink down on him.

"Condom…" she mumbles. _Always the voice of reason._

"_Mmm_," he answers but makes no move to get one. Hoping against all hope that one of these nights, he'll make her forget, get her to relax, to accept this. Him and her and that this is how it's supposed to be, no matter what happens next.

"Are you _kidding_ me!" She nods down at his dick between them. "This isn't the first time. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to knock me up!"

As she says it, he feels his skin crawl. It's disgusting, it's beyond playing dirty. What kind of fucked-up creep is he? And though he's never actually formulated the sensation into words he knows that it's the truth.

"Yeah right..." he sneers as if she's being paranoid.

But it's there, he can't shut his eyes to it. Telling himself that if she were pregnant, she wouldn't be going back to the island. She'd have to let him go in her place. She'd never risk the safety of her unborn child. And it's not a romantic notion, it isn't. This sudden desire to fill her up, to make her his. It isn't because he wants to be a father. Can't even remotely imagine himself as one and has no longing for that. It's deeper, more primal than anything he's ever felt. That primitive possessive brute inside of him, wanting to make her his. _Completely. _How a man claims his woman. Wants his woman to carry his child.

She seems to accept the lie. Hands starting to wander like they always do, her lips searching out his. She helps him on with the goddamn rubber as if she doesn't trust him with it anymore. Probably thinks he'll puncture it on purpose. Straddles him once she's satisfied that he's properly suited up. And something more far away from romance you'll have to look long for. Wants the beauty of making love to her without all of these horribly stark necessities. Dimly considers asking her to see a doctor about the pill. But then again. It's more than that. She rocks against him, hands on his shoulders, how her hips move, the gentle sway of her. And he knows that right now, he's half forgiven. She's drawn into the effervescent sensation of their bodies meeting. And her ease makes him brave, makes him say things he's never ever wanted to before. Things that are embarrassingly farfetched for him.

"Hey... it wouldn't be the worst thing... you know... How 'bout it?"

Off him. Away from him and the bed like a fucking rocket. Furious or upset, he's got no idea what the hell he said that was so awful.

"No!"

"Hey, cool it… Come back here girl… I'm just saying…" he bumbles on, like a blind fool, bumping into walls and stumbling on obstacles.

Barefoot, slapping her soles against the floor as she crosses the room to pick up her underwear, her bra. Collecting the items one by one and he's so stumped he can't even enjoy the view of her ass as she bends forward.

"No you were right the first time! What would we do with a baby? Like this! Drifting across South East Asia?" She is loud and shrill and he can't understand it. _Why she had to go off like this._

It's deep, too deep but he takes courage and makes the plunge. He might very well drown, might be washed out to sea or pulled down by the undercurrent. But he has to. Has to. Because suddenly a kid doesn't seem like the end of the world. Something of him, growing in her. He can't shake the feeling that this is how it is supposed to be.

"It's different now."

"How is it different Sawyer? We're still the same people." Can see the tremble of her hands even here, from across the room as she steps into her panties. Pulls them up over her hips. The bra, threading her arms through the straps and he wants to shout _'no'._

Gets up too, crosses the room in three long strides. Embracing her, holding her against him even though he knows she doesn't want to be held. Wants him away from her.

"I told you I'd take care of you. And I will," he says reaching behind her to flick the bra clasp open.

"But you won't come back with me," she says brusquely, brushing off his hands and fumbling to refasten it again.

"I said I'd take care of you and that's what I'm gonna' do to the best of my ability." Lips against her forehead. His hands capping her face. She avoids him by pulling her chin down against her chest. Wants to talk, doesn't want to be distracted by his cheap moves.

"And I told you I don't _need_ you taking care of me."

"Aw come back to bed... I'm sure a little thing like that wouldn't bother us much."

At this she shoves him away for real. Continues dressing in a way that has his heart arresting in his chest. He parks himself uselessly on the bed, watching her. _What the hell is she doing?_

"Hey, where you off to? What did I _do_!"

"You know... I'm never ever going to be pregnant again. _Never_."

Stands there, just straight up, arms hanging lifelessly at her sides. And he thinks about the one she's lost. The boy. He must be dumb, because he misreads her completely.

"Don't say that baby, it happened once, I'm sure I still have a few good ones in me..."

"Yeah 'cause you are _Mr. Virile_ now!" Gathers her hair up in a sloppy ponytail and ties it with a plain rubber band. Puts the stupid China-doll wig on, a little skewed, a big bump where her ponytails starts.

"Yeah, I reckon I don't do so badly in that department." Sits there stupidly and realizes that he's still wearing the damned condom. Pulls it off and flicks it into the paper-bin across the room. She takes her time to roll her eyes demonstratively before she bends down to put her shoes on.

"I don't doubt your masculine prowess," she says quietly and pauses enough to give him time to look smug about it. "But I never want to be pregnant again."

She slams the door shut behind her. And he's left reeling from the inexplicable exchange.

…..

He waits for her forever. Takes a few turns around the block to see if he can find her. Even picks her up some food from one of the ambulating nighttime vendors, just in case she might be hungry when she gets back. Buys a whole bunch of the little barbecue chicken pieces on skewers. Warm fragrant peanut sauce and white rice. Starts panicking when the clock on the bedside table shows almost midnight and she still isn't back.

_Hell,_ no way he can sleep like this. With her in circulation in some random craphole on Java. His fears growing as the clock ticks away and damn, he's starting to entertain some fantastic ideas on white slavery and pirates when finally, he hears her key in the lock.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this._

Her and him. Crap. Isn't going to waste time playing hard to get. And he gets up. Pushes down the handle of the doorand flings it open for her. Doesn't even give her time to walk through it, pulls her in roughly. Doesn't stop to think, closes the door by pushing her up against it. Hands on her hips. Fuck. She sneaks both hands in under his shirt and the way she meets his lips. Damn. He wants more. More.

"Where were you? " he whispers against the sad sweetness of her lips. Her palms against his skin, up across his chest.

"I'm here now."

He pulls the ugly wig off, disentangle her hair from the rubber band, letting it fall down. His fingers nestling, ensnaring themselves in her hair, the way it almost reaches her waist. Kissing her, down her face. Lips, crook of her mouth, cheeks, eyes. Finding it impossible to break free, to leave her now. Undressing her, almost ripping the shoulder seams of her t-shirt when he yanks it over her head. Has her naked on the bed before he knows it. A condom prepared and dutifully rolled on, like a peace offering. She doesn't have to remind him again. Ever.

"Would _never _do anything that you don't want... I ain't that kind of man. You don't want a kid, hell, I don't want a kid either...Never did." The acrid taste of the lie in his mouth.

"Yeah, okay... just don't talk…. not now. Please..."

"Hey, you know I'm all yours. Do what the hell you want with me. You want me to wear a fucking raincoat and boots during sex I'll do that too. Whatever makes you feel safe."

This almost elicits a little smile._ Almost. _Thinks he can hardly take it, can't pretend like this, but the rancour of it is mellowed by the feeling of her, tight and warm. How she pulsates life beneath him.

But they are different tonight. As if they have suddenly grown angles and corners that previously didn't exist. Hard edges and impossibly skewed sharpness that just don't fit together, they can't find the right way to merge. The pace is awkward and angular, bones clashing into bones and muscles suddenly hard instead of soft and friendly. He takes care when he pushes into her, over and over again, keeps his weight off her by holding himself up on his arms. But she struggles, tries to take him down, her hands on his ass, urging him on.

It's off, how she seems to want to fuck and he wants to make love to her. They are discordant and ill matched. He tries to go deeper, get inside of her but it doesn't matter how deeply inside of her he plunges. It matters none. Can't connect tonight. Can't reach deep enough and he knows she can feel it too. The pace escalating, how he pounds into her and still, it does nothing to alleviate the isolation he feels. The sense of not reaching her. Wants to say 'sorry', but has the feeling there are only so much she can take.

"Hey, open your eyes Kate. _Look_ at me," he whispers. Wants her to see him. To see him for what he is. A shit of a man. But hers. Whatever she wants, he thinks. He'll give it to her. And if she wants nothing, then he'll just be here. Just stand next to her. _Anything. _He'll do anything for her.

He knows he's near, the almost painful blood-filled pressure escalating, not so much pleasure as it is defeat. Her refusal to look at him makes his throat ache. Looking down into her face, searching for her there. He can't find it, her. Not the face of a woman making love. Little wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, clinched shut. Hard. The lips, not the soft plump willingness he associates with sex, with her and him. Tight, hard bite around words that she won't let out.

"Baby, look at me," he says, voice rough and grating in the void her silence leaves.

She makes no sign of having heard at all and he can't hold on any longer, explodes within her, collapsing on top of her in spasms that he's unable to control. The kind of climax that gives nothing. No release, no happiness. No closeness.

Pulls out of her, withdrawing carefully with a grip on the condom. She actually reaches down and helps him roll the disgusting thing off. Giving him a few sweet strokes before she lets go. Charity, that's all it is. He's acutely aware of the fact that she didn't come, not even close. Doesn't seem to care either, the way she lies there. Looking at him now. Eyes dark pools of everything said and all the things left unsaid.

But he cares. He cares. Wants her to want him. Feels like their bond, whatever it consists of is disintegrating before his very eyes. A little crack in the structure, spreading fast, fast, fast. Pieces starting to crumble, slipping through his fingers.

Fix this._ Save this_.

But he doesn't know how. Desperation clawing at him and he's so anxious he can hardly see her. She lies there like an illusion of something he can never hold onto, as if enveloped in a fog. Can't reach. Can't get to her. He moves down across her stomach, determined to at least do that, the physical. At least bring her on, let her fall asleep satisfied, sated. But she bucks, shoves his head away, her thighs drawn shut for him in a way that tells him she means business. Not granting him access tonight.

"No." Just a simple no. Not whispered, not exhaled, not breathed. Clear as crystal. _No._

Doesn't want him. The sex, hell he has no idea, why she let him sleep with her at all. He's not what she wants. Not tonight. Feels dirty for some reason, used, even though he knows what she did was the opposite. Humiliating, the sex, her opening up her legs for him, hips meeting his thrusts. That it was all for him._ A mercy fuck. _As if he's some big dumb animal that can be appeased with a quick roll between the sheets.

Still, she doesn't turn her back on him and goes to sleep the way he expects, fears her to. And perhaps it would have been better if she did. Heartbreaking, the contrived way in which she nestles up to him, her head on his shoulder as if they are even remotely alright. As if they could make it. Takes her hand from his chest, slides his fingers between hers, startled when he notices that the fake ring is gone.

A sense of deep and bottomless failure. And the exhaustion that has nothing to do with being tired. He just wants to escape this. Closes his eyes, not to have to think, not to have to ponder what all of this might mean. Tries to take comfort in the simple warmth of her body against him when he feels her cheek sticky and humid against his chest.

"Hey, what's going on? It wasn't _that _bad was it?" tries to make a joke out of it. But when he lifts her chin up, forcing her to bend backwards to look up at him his heart sinks.

Crying. _What's with the fucking crying?_

"No... "

Can't take this. _The tears._ Hot against his fingertips as he wipes them away. Nose a little red as if she's been crying for hours. Hates this quiet weeping. Hates it and what it might signify.

"I'm sorry James. I don't think we can..." she mumbles and draws her face down onto his chest again. Hides it from him.

_'You gonna' love me like nobody's loved me…' Ain't gonna' happen._

And he knew this was coming. Can almost map out word by word how this conversation will go down. No. Stop. Don't do this. Panics, his pulse picking up speed and it's so loud he can't even hear himself think. Knows this is sliding out of control.

"What now? What? Listen... I'm _sorry _alright! I say a lot of dumb stuff, you know that!"

A useless rescue attempt, it's a landslide, the soft unstable earth slowly moving under his feet and he knows it will end in disaster. The tragedy already set in motion. Maybe since a long time ago. Maybe since the day they met even. Perhaps this was always going to happen.

She sits up, her eyes on his stomach. Not on his face. Can't ever look at him like a normal person. Her tousled hair falling around her, covering her breasts. Like a messed-up mermaid, the way she sits there on her knees. Fingers playing, winding around a stray strand of hair. Nervous and frighteningly calm at the same time. As if some kind of decision has been taken for him.

"I'm sorry Sawyer, I can give you what you want… "

_No. No. Don't talk. Hush baby. Hush._

"And what do I _want_?"

While the darkness swallows him up, eats him alive, he desperation turning into anger. Sits up too. Tugging the sheet up over his dick. Needs to covert up. The bitter taste of having been fucked out of pity. It's got to be a first.

And he knows it's pointless but he can't help the stubborn, stupid reluctance to give in even as he feels the ground disappearing underneath him.

"A family..." Her answer. Spontaneous, not the least hesitation. The way you speak an undebatable truth.

He sees red. A deep almost purple red, coloring her skin, the room, the sheet everything. And it's so cliché he could laugh if only it didn't hurt so damn much.

"If you ain't got me all sassed out! It's about the last thing on earth I want! In fact I am fucking _ecstatic_ that you can't..."

_Can't have kids._

_No. No. No._

The cruelty like acid on his tongue. The viciousness of his own voice corroding, seeping in. Poisonous. How she draws her breath in sharply, as if he's actually plunged a stake through her heart. Watches almost in fascination how she pushes the pain away and how her face hardens as if it's being set in cement. Not a word. Eyes meeting his now. Brutally empty. Just an impenetrable green, how she is suddenly not his anymore. _Nobody's._

Salvage this. _Fix this_.

And this time. Clothes are put on with a finality that has him frozen in dread. Tries to get up. Yanks up his jeans over his ass, no time to look for underwear. When he steps forward, thinking that a 'sorry' might do it, she backs away as if she's expecting him to strike out, slap her. She casts nervous glances at the door , looking for an escape route and then seems to come to. He can see her trying to rear in those instincts. The impulse that says; 'run, go, get away'. And he can't say he blames her. Unforgivable. He's just proven that he is a worthless creep and that there is no way he could ever be good enough for her. Unworthy.

"Lets just sleep..." she whispers the finality in it.

"Yeah okay, sure." Such a narrow escape from disaster. Hardly dares to breathe as he watches her untie her shoes again and recline down on the very far edge of the bed, showing him her back.

"I've lost so many James," she says softly and matter of fact to the wall. "I can't give you that. I just can't risk loosing another one... Won't... _never_ again."

And if his heart hadn't already broken for her many times over before this, it sure would have shattered with those words.

"Alright." Though he knows it's far from alright. As far to the opposite end as they can come. It's not alright. It will never be. Unforgivable, what he'd said. Not thinking, just letting his mouth run amok as usual. No, he doesn't blame her. And it's not the first time he's seen her like this, her back against him. A pose that says, 'you touch me, I'll kill you'. But it's different, and how different he doesn't want to find out. Lies down on his side. Turns his own back towards her. _Heavy and uneasy. _Because he can't bear to think of it, can't watch her like this tonight.

_Can't fix this. _Can't take it back. He knows he's lying buried under a mountain of brown earth. No one coming to his rescue, least of all her.

Thinks he'll never be able to fall asleep, the way he tosses and turns and her even calm breathing next to him makes it worse, much worse. But somehow, sometime in the small hours he most have dozed off.

...

Doesn't want to wake up, because he knows. She won't be there. Can feel the lack of her presence in the room even before he's opened his eyes. 'You're gonna love me like nobody's loved me. Has Ray Charles on a loop in his brain, tearing at his heart. Knows he can't do this. Can't wake up today. But there is no escape to be had, no getting around it. He'll have to open his eyes sooner or later.

Has to spend the rest of his days wondering if it could have been salvaged. If a 'marry me' could have done it, if anything else he could have said or done might have made a difference. If he could have convinced her that he doesn't want more with her. Nothing more than the two of them, like this. If she could have ever believed that it would have been enough for him.

Can't do this. Can't.

She is gone. _Just gone._

….

_Hope you liked it even though it's a serious downer and ends on a glum note. And without giving too much away, the story isn't over yet :)_

_Thanks for reading and leave a little review if you wish!_


	32. In another's place

_So sorry for the delay! Don't know if anyone is still waiting for an update but still sorry it's been so long. Have been completely unable to write for the last two weeks and when I finally had time I couldn't really get the tone right - not sure it's worth the wait. Crossing fingers you might enjoy some of it anyway. (Guilty, guilty Javajive nervously posts the chapter and scoots off through the backdoor.)_

_Rated M: for swearing and mature subjects._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

...

**In another's place**

...

Though nothing rivals the pain of leaving Aaron behind, closing that motel door and forcing her feet to move away – this, leaving him too – it's almost impossible. A sharp stab of remorse that makes her chip for air.

Picks her bag up, tucks his phone into it and sneaks the car keys into her jean pocket. Allows herself one last look at him. Soaks him up, absorbs him. Lying there in bed, their bed, sleeping soundly. Eyelashes against cheekbones, strands of stringy, dirt-blonde hair across his forehead. Sprawled out on his stomach, sheet pushed down across his buttocks, his back broad and naked. Hers. But he was always just for loans. His face half buried in the pillow, lips a little open, like an unconscious bid for a goodbye kiss. Untroubled and beautiful. Resists the desire to bend down and inhale him, smell his skin one last time. If he wakes up, she knows she won't have the strength to go through with it.

So she closes the door behind her, quietly. Wavers there for a second, outside. Has to tear herself away, step back from the door, placing one foot after another. Away. Away from him.

_It's for the best._

She knows how the hurt inevitably turns into rage with him. There will be no going back, like burning bridges, incinerating all paths back. She has to do it properly. For his own sake. Just rip herself away. He won't understand it, will hate her for sure. But he'll be better off without her, just like Aaron.

The sun is just about to peak over the horizon, the air a crisp sheer blue and her emotions on lockdown, her life unraveling. Don't think. Don't feel. She's good at this. Or she used to be, before him, before Aaron. Good at not feeling anything, putting blocks up, pushing everything away, swift and painless. Still as she sinks into the driver's seat and puts the key in the ignition, she dies a little. Taps her fingers against the wheel as she sets the car in motion, rolling slowly down the narrow street, the neighborhood just waking up. Shop owners lifting off their shutters, setting out their goods. Food vendors firing up their gas kitchens. Her eyelids clipping, staring blindly ahead of her, refusing to let anything out – or anything in. No. She won't be someone who sits and cries over a man in a beat-up heap of junk like in some corny country song. She can't afford to break apart. Got to keep it together now that she's on her own again.

She gets lost navigating the streets out of Yogyakarta. Has no idea where she's going. No plan. Nothing. Regretting everything now. From beginning to end. Thinking that the pain isn't worth it, nothing is worth this. Should have never given into it in the first place.

Somehow she still makes it out on a larger road running through a densely populated area of ramshackle houses. Her eyes glazed over, not really taking anything in. Just drives on. Oblivious to the world waking up around her, families getting ready for the new day. Mothers carrying big bags of vegetables, children walking down the road in their impeccable white and red school uniforms, barefoot, their hair slicked to their heads. Should have left him a note, she thinks. Should have tried to make sense of it all.

The sound shrill in the silence of the car. Making her jump a mile. The phone, she extracts it from her bag, thrown on the passenger seat next to her. On his spot. The bag, a cheap little batik fabric thing Sawyer bought her on one of his little excursions through the town center. Ugly, but oh, bought for her. The number unknown, but she knows and she can't pick up, will be lost if she does. She knows she won't have the will power, the strength to do the right thing. To leave him alone. Let someone else find him, take care of him. Love him. Maybe he'll go back now, to Miami. Maybe he'll find a way back into Juliet's life. They'd been good together, even she had been able to see that.

The ringing starts a few hours outside Yogyakarta, Java's fertile landscape swishing by and it continues like that. She turns the sound off but she can't put it down. Lets it lie in her lap while she drives. It drives her insane, how it vibrates against her legs, prompting, pleading for her to answer. Acutely aware of the screen, the number flashing, taunting her. Pick up, pick up, pick up. She knows it's him. Only Sawyer would get so obsessive, would be pissed enough to keep ringing. Furious pigheadedness driving him on.

Wants nothing else but to hear his voice, the warm Southern tones, that make her skin heat up. Wants nothing else but to answer, to say; sorry, sorry. I'm coming back. Turn the car around, rush back to him, crawl back into bed and make everything alright. But she keeps telling herself; this is right, leaving him is the kindest thing to do. Rather now than years down the line, when it's too late, when she has stolen more of his time. The family thing, the last proof, and he can play aloof and macho all he wants, but she knows. The carelessness of these last few weeks, the pretending to forget protection, the gentle, sneaky ambushes in bed.

And he deserves all of that. A whole woman, someone who can give him a life, a family, a home. Deserves so much more than she can ever give, just bits and pieces - crumbs and leftovers. Her messed up mind and body, her life in shambles, her non-existing future. He doesn't need her. He thinks he does, but she knows better. He'll get over this and move on, find someone better.

And the phone keeps blinking, flashing, taunting. _Pick me up. Pick up!_

…..

He'll be the first to admit it. He doesn't take it like a man. At all. Waking up without her. The indent of her head still visible in the pillow next to him, a stray hair, dark and long. Knowing instantly that she isn't out buying breakfast or getting the paper. Won't come home all giddy and playful, pull back the sheet and launch herself on him. There will be no more peachy-soft lovemaking in the crumpled bed in the little pavillion. Not this morning. Not ever. _She's gone._

All energy goes out of him. He doesn't get up. Just lies there on his side as if he's been injected with some kind of paralyzing agent, curled up in a ball. Frozen. The minute little things he notices as he lies there scanning the room swathed in the silvery morning light. She's gone. Her things gone, leaving an astronomical hole that doesn't correspond with the measly few belongings missing. Some underwear, her shoes and a bit of make-up. She doesn't own much.

He just lies there. Pretends nothing is wrong.

Can't bring himself to do any of those things he ought to. Doesn't jump into his jeans, doesn't throw on clothes in a haste and he definitely doesn't run down the street in a flurry asking the neighbors if they've seen her. He does nothing. Just coils up, staring as if possessed at the ring. Still on his finger.

Later, forced by nature's demands, he stumbles into the bathroom. Remains standing there, staring down the toilet, turning the ring over and over between his fingers, sort of hoping that it will slip by itself. Because he isn't able to do it. Can't throw it for some reason. Instead he hides it in a sock, stuffs it down at the bottom of his bag, thinking that one day goddammit, one day he'll chuck it in the trash.

_When he's ready._

…..

Once he realizes that she has made off with both the car and his phone, _ah well; Jacks' phone_, he staggers down the street to buy another one. Picks the cheapest one he can find because she has scurried off with most of their funds too. Damn thief. Calls Hurley the first thing he does, not able to tell him that she is gone. That he has managed to loose her. I had her, and lost her. What goes around comes around, obviously.

_And now he's Jack._

Stupid. _Stupid!_ He'd been so goddamn smug. Had thought what he could give her would be irresistible, that he had actually clinched the deal. Had thought he'd had her hooked on him. Those days in Yogyakarta. The sex, the kidding around, the intimate tenderness. Finally opening up a little, letting him in. Her 'I love you'. Had him thinking he could do what the Doc couldn't. The sour taste of defeat at the realization. He's no smarter, no more savvy, no more 'irresistible' or special than Jack. A rude reality check.

Like everything with her, this is a first for him. He's aghast at the banality of it once he realizes that this, the almost flue-like feeling. This is what it feels like - to have your heart crushed. To hemorrhage. At first he's mostly just numb, borderline weepy. And then, when that first stunned paralysis lets up he is just plain pissed. Because it's easier to be angry than to be broken. _And fuck it. _The running at first little obstacle. Hell, he can't accept it! He won't. He's said many stupid things and he knows that last crap was abhorrent, unforgivable. Still, shit. Just leaving without a fight. As if he's what? _Not worth it._

The obsessive ringing. Not his proudest moments. He calls her from morning till evening, like a stalker, dialing over and over again. Walking across the room like a restless ghost, hanging around the pavilion, pacing back and forward on the terrace, smoking, pacing, smoking some more. Calling, just on the off chance that she might actually pick up. Might forget herself. He'll have the phone pressed to his ear constantly, for hours. He'll put it down tops half an hour, for a smoke for a nap and then on again. Compulsive. Can't stop himself. This is what has become of him.

Imagines her sitting there on some shabby hotel bed staring at the phone in front of her, the shrill monotone ring repeated ad nauseam. Pictures her jaws clenched taut, determined not to pick it up. Cutting him out, slicing him away from her. Maybe he had just gotten too close and maybe no one had ever penetrated that deep into her, beyond the layers and layers of protective insulation. He imagines it must freak her out, hell, it scares him stiff too. But he keeps calling, thinking that if she picks up, he'll cajole her back to him. Will convince her to give him another chance. He could, if only she would answer.

She never picks up.

_'You gonna' love me like nobody's loved me'. _Bullshit.

…..

Ibu Sri sends her grandsons to check on him. Suicide watch or something to that extent, he has no idea. She sends them with trays of food, hot tea and coffee in excess, far more than he could ever consume. She doesn't say much, but finally seems unable to keep quiet no more. Curiosity getting the better of her. How she hovers around the porch with a concerned expression that has him itching.

"Your wife, she left? Where did she go?"

"Have no idea," he says shortly, doesn't care if his briskness is interpreted as rudeness.

"Well, is she coming back?"

"No Ma'am. No, I reckon she ain't ever coming back."

"That's a pity," the old lady says and he actually believes that she means it. "You were a nice couple. Very happy."

"Yeah, well, we ain't a nice couple anymore," he gnarls and stands up to go inside the pavilion. Not very happy either, he wants to add.

After that, she leaves him be, still with that cautious kind of compassion. Still feeding him as if he's a convalescent patient. Even leaves him cigarettes outside his door. Because after that one excursion to buy the phone he won't go anywhere, tops a few meters from the door. Stands guard. Waiting. Numb and nauseous most of the time. Angry too. Furious. Wants to hurl things against the wall, wants to kick something. Someone. Would do almost anything to have a reason to hit someone now. Finds himself wanting to hurt her in a way that frightens him. How they had gotten so close, only for her to let go.

_Just like that._

The more logical part of him asks the concrete questions, how the hell she could have just left him like that. Skulk away in the dark of the night, leave him behind like a piece of garbage. If she really were capable of love, she wouldn't have. Whatever she'd said to him, it was all crap, all nonsense and excuses. She ain't capable of loving anyone. That's the reasonable part of him talking. But the other one, the one that is all heart – it can't see the facts for what they are. Makes him lie awake all night, hoping, listening for the sound of her hand on the door, her key in the lock. Imagines her soft footsteps on the pavement outside. The rustle of clothes as she undresses in the darkness.

In his dreams, sometimes she comes. Sneaks down next to him between the sheet, cool skin against him, as if nothing has happened. He dreams that he fucks her. No emotions, no sentimental attachment. As if his heart isn't in shreds. And the dreams are more nightmarish than erotic, something of that last night's pity-fuck. They have him waking up bathing in cold sweat, sticky and frustrated. Though he knows it's insane, absurd to hope for, he can't help thinking that she may come back. And that he has to be here waiting, just in case she changes her mind. She has to. Just has to. Unimaginable, the alternative.

So he sticks around, feeling like an imbecile.

She never comes of course, and he keeps telling himself that maybe it's for the best. Doesn't know what he would have done with her. Doesn't quite trust himself with his own emotions. Too raw, too injured, days bleeding into nights, the feeling of being on the brink of collapse. And after a week of this; Ibu Sri's suffocating pity and her grandsons' constant presence, it all becomes too much. He stuffs his things into his bag, fingers touching the ring through the fabric of the sock.

He even packs the stupid recorder and the Ray Charles cassettes that he can't listen to anymore without his stomach turning inside out. He buys a one-way ticket back to Denpasar, Bali – no other goal in mind than getting back to Hurley. Curl up there instead and drink himself into oblivion in a hotel room with the drapes drawn shut. He never wants to see the damn sun again.

…..

Hurley says nothing when he shows up at the office of the Emporium. Not a word. He hates the warm bear hug he receives, the friendly slap on his back. You poor bastard, it says.

Hurley checks him in immediately, sets him up in one of the fancy suites by the pool. Once he's inside, in a lump on the sofa, a bellhop comes knocking, handing over a bottle of fine Bourbon. Honestly, at that point he's not far from tears as grown as he is.

_Fuck _Hurley for being this perfect friend, babying him in his misery. For knowing exactly what he needs. It's too much.

The icebox is fully stashed and there are fresh flowers and fruit on the table. Damn him. Needs to wallow and the setting just isn't right. Ain't no way he can feel sorry for himself in this place. _Damn Hurley. _Considers briefly to taking his junk and transferring himself to one of the crappy backpacker hotels downtown but the Bourbon is beckoning. Come, take me, drink me.

The air-conditioning on full blast, makes it feel like he's somewhere else. Not back here in Bali, without her. Sits there with the bottle and the phone, dialing over and over again. No reply. _Never fucking ever. _Why the hell did she steal the damn phone for if she ain't ever gonna' pick it up? But he fears it almost as much as he does never hearing from her again. Fears hearing her voice, small and frail and reserved. Fears that then he'll have to accept it. That there is no going back. It's over. Almost a sense of relief every time she doesn't answer. He's a good way down the bottle by the time he hears someone's key in the lock and the door swings open.

"What are you doing here Jackass? Come to gloat?"

"No." Jack closes the door carefully behind him. Remains standing there in the middle of the room. Taking up too much space. Too much air.

"You come to kill me Doc, then get it over with. I don't care one fig..." His feet large and ugly, sticking out across the armrest of the sofa. Country bumpkin feet, knobbly and uncultured. She had loved his feet though, had found them nice - or so she'd said. Had claimed to love all of him but where the hell is she now? Can't concentrate on Jack, nosy sonofabitch, but he stands up anyway. Sensing a chance to let off some steam. Wavering, far too plastered to be expected to balance his body upright.

Jack, moving fast, agile and determined and he sees the fist coming, can't say he cares much. A single well-aimed punch, solar plexus, all the air going out of him. Doubling over, his big dumb hands just hanging at his side.

"That all you got, sissy-boy?" Growls, wiping the hair out of his eyes, glaring up at Jack. Almost looking forward to the externalized pain. To the next punch. Wants Jack to pummel him, take it all away. But the asshole backs off. Gives him a humiliating once over and he knows he looks like hell but he's beyond caring. Hasn't had a shower for days, hasn't shaved or washed his hair. But let Jackass judge him all he wants. _Let him._

"I wanted to kill you… when I heard," Jack says quietly, taking a seat in one of the armchairs, watching him as he slumps down on the coach. "Wanted to beat the living daylight out of you but…"

"Go ahead Jackass! I don't give a flying fuck."

"No. You're not worth it." Jack peers at him, rubbing his knuckles as if they hurt after that girly-punch to his belly. He looks annoyingly tidy and well put together, crisp white shirt and slacks, hair in place. But then again, he hasn't had his heart ground into mincemeat the last few days.

Had been drinking from the neck of the bottle before Jack's unwelcome entrance, but somehow he's conscious enough to pour some into the glass the bellhop brought. A proper whiskey glass, wide with a thick heavy bottom.

"Then why don't you just buzz off asswipe? I'm busy!" Makes a big display of it. Lies there sipping his drink. Legs crossed by the ankles. Jeans grubby and filthy across the knees and he can't help feeling a little self conscious. Turns his face towards him to give him his trademark smirk. "You gonna' scram or not Doc? Ain't got anyone else to bother?"

"Just… came to check on you."

"With your fist? Yeah, now that that's accomplished, you mind getting out of my goddamn hair?" Half-hearted snarkiness. He can't even muster that. He's screwed. To be honest, he finds a certain relief in having Jack here to take his misery out on. Tired of living in his head, of the thoughts swimming around in his liquored up brain. "What do you care anyway?"

"I don't._ She_ asked me to."

Actually drops the phone right there and then. It just slides out of his hand as if greased with butter, hitting the carpet with a soft thud.

"You've _talked _to her?" Pictures her sitting on her bed, cross-legged, picking up the phone to call Jack. Jack, not him. He has screwed up so badly, he knows that. Doesn't want to think about it. How far from her he's put himself. How far from forgiveness he is.

"Yeah." Jack bends down to pick the phone up, passing it to him. Sawyer pretends not to notice, forcing Jack to put it on the sofa table instead. Petty and stupid. Wants to hurt someone and she's not here. Livid with her. _Fuck her. _Fuck her for calling Jack.

And it hurts, worse than it ought to considering the large percentage of pure Bourbon in his bloodstream by now. Stares down into his glass, thinking that he needs ice. If only he had ice, he'd feel alright. If he has ice he can make it through the night. Nothing can be right and maybe he's making too big of a thing out of this. _Christ, _it ain't as if she's dead or anything. He's lived without her before. He can do it again. Can learn not to care. But right now, he doesn't believe in any of that. Can't see how he's going to do this. How he's supposed to get back to who he was. Give it up.

"Is she okay?" Doesn't want to ask but the words come out anyway."

"Yeah, I think she is. Worries about you. Says to tell you not to drink too much."

_None of her goddamn business,_ he wants to say. Impossible to admit that it feels a little good to know that she fusses about him. Albeit from afar, and even though she uses her ex as a go-between. She worries about him. _Loves him._ He knows she does and how can it be so hard for her to see, that they can't be like this. Can't exist apart.

"Oh well, hell, she thinks she knows me so damn well." Drinks, smacks his lips in a way he reckons is pretty darn aggravating. Wants to smash his glass against the wall. Wants to beat someone to a pulp. Wonders if he's got it in him, to rile Jack enough to get another fight going. Doubts it.

"Yeah, guess she does. You care to share that bottle a little?"

This takes him aback. No. Has no desire to have Jack around to witness his humiliation. He'd been so damn cocky. Had thought what she had with her was different. Hates having to share the rejection with him. The good doctor.

"Nope. You ain't drinking Doc. Not looking to be blamed for you falling off the wagon as well."

"You know my problem is more the little white pills. I can have a drink or two without falling apart."

Sounds like a load of bull to him but it's not as if he cares much either way. Let him. It can't get much worse than this and frankly he could do with some company, even if Doc is on the absolute bottom of his list of desired drinking-buddies.

"Help yourself buddy," he says, trying to infuse irony in the _'buddy'_. Probably failing but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

Jack stands up and wanders across the room. Picks up an empty glass from the top of the minibar.

….

A few hours later, another bottle ordered via room service and considerably numbed senses. Their screwed-up little brotherhood, the bonds that tie them together. It's perhaps inevitable that the conversation veers off towards her after all clichés are said and the snarkiness is spent.

"She _calls _you..? Why the hell does she call you Doc!"

"Maybe she doesn't have your number." Jack has loosened up considerably. Feet on the low coffee table, shirt a little more crumpled, eyes glassy and Sawyer finds that he's feeling better than he has in a while. Grudgingly half enjoying Jack's mellow company.

"Harhar… _very _funny!" He reaches to fill Jack's glass up. All the way up. _Hah, _gonna' make him so pissed he passes out. That's the goal but then the turn of the conversation distracts him from it.

"She… she says she can't."

"And why the _hell_ not?" Throws back his drink. Wiping the alcohol sweat off his forehead. Pretending to be only half interested but he reckons he ain't fooling much.

"I don't know. That's all she'll tell me."

He drags himself up. Doesn't want to, but he has to. Sits up, leaning his arms on his knees and locks his eyes on Jack.

"Where the fuck is she Doc?" He thinks, _he'll go get her back right now. Will go and..._ He doesn't know. Mostly he wants to just hurt her. Wants to beg her forgiveness, wants to make her love him. The way he loves her.

"I don't know. Think she travels around. She says she never stays anywhere for long."

"Yeah, that's my girl. Restless like a goose on fire. Ain't never had her figured… "He's drunk but not so drunk he isn't aware of the slurring. His tongue struggling to grip the words, falling back to the singsong tones of the deepest South. "Was just sayin', I'm alright with it if she wanna' settle down and _'poof!'_ - the girl is gone."

"What do you mean _'settle down'_? You _proposed_ to her!" Jack sits up straight too. Edgy now, mellowness gone. _Hah._ That didn't sit well with him. Not as cool as he likes to pretend.

"Nah… nope that's your goddamn territory Doc, I ain't the marrying kind." He talks like an ass. He is _exactly_ the marrying kind. He is with her, even in his stupor he realizes that. "I said we can have a goddamn kid if she wanna'."

"_Oh_..." Jacks head bent forward, staring down at his own hands.

"Whaddaya' mean _'oh'_? Just speak up!"

"The baby-thing, hardly an easily navigable area... with her," Jack says stiffly.

"Don't I know it. Just… _Dammit,_ I thought that's what she wanted."

At this Jack snorts his Bourbon loudly, spluttering in a most insulting manner.

"Kate! A _baby_! Wow, you really aren't in tune with her at all, are you?"

"Oh and _you_ were!" Strange this, the brotherly bickering, as if the anger, the animosity between them has evaporated completely, now that they are both equally screwed. But he doesn't want to be. Fuck it, he doesn't wanna' be lumped together with Jack. He strains against it. Fights the truth.

"Maybe not, but she was on the pill – _and _- still insisted on condoms." Jack leans forward, waggling his glass in front of Sawyer, the rest forwarded with a smile of legendary smugness. "And you thought she wanted a baby! "

The liquor must have gone to the poor bastards head. He's a little loud and he is certainly sharing a little too much. Still, it stings to even imagine the two of them ever having had that together. An image of him, dark haired above her, he can't push it away fast enough. And he doesn't fucking care if Jackass had to double bag it with her. _Ain't something he needs to know._

"Well… she wasn't on the damn pill with _me_…" he mutters grumpily as if this gives him some kind of advantage over Jack when really it means absolutely nothing.

"Yeah but I guess she was pretty meticulous about the condoms, right?"

"Hrmm." He only nods and takes a large swig of his drink. He's a big old klutz. Doesn't know where the hell he ever got such a harebrained idea from. _A baby! Him. With her._ What the hell had he been thinking?

"So that's what made her leave? You asked if she wanted a baby – and she just took off?" Detects a smudge of satisfaction in Jack's voice as if he's trying hard to hide it. Sawyer can't say he succeeds totally.

"Nah," he grumbles. "She said she ain't able to give me what I want. _What I want! _She knows nothing 'bout it. Not one thing."

"What does she think you want?"

"Makes no fucking sense… _'A family'_." Imitates a woman's light voice, as if Kate is some bitchy, nagging wife. "Can you believe it! Do I _look_ like a wanna-be family man, someone who's longing for the picket fence and Sunday steak dinners?"

"Yeah." Jack nods sagely at this. And he gets a vivid flash of his own knuckles crunching against that self satisfied face. Holds the glass so hard he's afraid it will crack between his fingers.

"What the hell do you mean _'yeah'_?" What's wrong with everyone? Think they have him all sassed out. Know what he needs and want.

"I think Kate's right. You looked well on the way towards the station wagon, two kids and a dog with Juliet. And _trust _me, you won't find it with her."

Too wasted to get in a huff about Jack mentioning Juliet. And fact is, the pain of all that is completely and utterly overshadowed by this, by being abandoned like this.

"I think she did what she thought best for you James." Looking apologetic. As if all that crap were his fault. This floors him. What the hell does Jack know about it? Somewhere in his boozed up brain he realizes that Jack is trying to comfort him, in his own awkward uppity way.

"What? So _'best' _for me is dumping my big useless ass in the darkest of Java and sneak off like a goddamn thief in the night? That's _'best' f_or me?"

"She might think so. Just like she threw me out for the good of Aaron. And she was right too. I wasn't in a state to be around him. And she knows she can't give you the station-wagon life. Same thing..."

Ignores this. It's hardly comparable, chucking out a druggie for the good of a kid with pushing away the man who loves her just because he wants more. Can't even begin to understand the long and winding ways her mind works.

"Said she never wanna' be pregnant again. _Hell,_ as if I got her up the duff on purpose the first time!"

"Yeah well, my guess is, she's had a few of those." It's dark outside but Jack looks out through the floor to ceiling windows. Not at him. And this is the part he doesn't want to think of. Not now. Wants to be pissed at her. Ain't no way he can bitch and moan about her if he has to think of all of that.

"She _told _you about that?" Drives both hands through his hair. Can't sit still any longer. Gets up, paces across the room. Needs air. Now. He struggles to open the glass doors, suffocating. Needs to get it open now. He swears and fiddles frantically with the lock before getting it open. Stands there, hands on the doorframe. Wants to just throw himself out into the Balinese night. Sort of upset that he's not seven floors up.

"No, but, like I said. Seemed like it wasn't the first time, that's all. She just knew too much. It was too far gone for an evacuation, and she kind of new that. It wasn't news to her when they told her they'd have to induce."

This has him turning around to look at Jack, still in the armchair. _Doesn't want this. _Still cannot stop himself from digging in, clawing for the facts. Doesn't want this.

"Screw the fucking doctor lingo, buddy-boy. What the hell are you saying! What goddamn _'evacuation'_?"

Detests that Jack knows more about her than him. Regrets not coaxing it out of her. Maybe if he'd known more he could have avoided shoving his big fat foot in his mouth every time he'd opened it.

"It died in uterus. Was about seventeen or eighteen weeks on the way and it was too big to... you know 'take' out. She had to… birth it."

_Oh no baby girl,_ he thinks. _No. Not this. _And what he'd said to her. No wonder she'd run.

"_'He'_ Doc! _He'_ was too big! She had to birth _him_!" There are no words for what kind of asshole he is. So he takes it out on Jack. Voice rising, heart pounding and he doesn't need this image of her. Of her lying handcuffed to some stupid prison hospital bed, humiliated and devastated, pushing out their dead kid. _His kid._ Tries to erase it. Tries to press delete.

"What?" Jack looks genuinely confused, forehead in deep folds.

"The damn kid. It – was - a – _boy_," he says, spelling it out as if the man is an idiot. He walks across the room. Reaches into the minibar, plonks some more ice into a glass. Doesn't need it now. Just needs to do something with himself.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah I know. I read it in her files."

_Ha! _Not because she told him then. Has time to feel a childish satisfaction over this. And then a sadness sweeps over him that he cannot dodge, cannot hide from. The guilt. She'd been all alone. So alone she hadn't even had anyone to tell. Doesn't want this, doesn't want to feel sorry for her.

"Does Kate know you snooped around in her files, buddy?"

"What do _you_ think?" Jack gives him a little sheepish grin at this and the two of them, the pathetic assholes they are.

He comes back to the sofa. If for nothing else, just because the bottle is there. Not much left in it. He's surprised they haven't yet passed out. The booze, loosening up nerves and tongue.

"The giving birth to… him…? That must have… you reckon?" Again, the sound, he can almost hear her screaming through the pain. But then again, he knows her. And that's not her, not Kate. He knows that in reality, she wouldn't have said a word. She'd have endured it. Pure defiant dignity. Would have held back all other emotions, blocked them out. Preferring to bite her tongue bloody rather than to give in, rather than let them see her desperation. She would have never let anyone in on the sorrow. He knows there had been no crying, or shouting or weeping. _Not with her._ Resilient survivor, moving on in spite of everything.

"Yeah," Jack says but to what he's got no fucking idea. Not sure what he wants to say either. "Yeah I guess it must have been… hard on her."

He lies down. Legs on the armrest, clinking the ice against the rim of his glass.

"She thinks I won't be happy with just her… 'cause of the kid-thing. Thinks I'll resent it." He sucks on a piece of ice, feels how it melts while he moves it around his mouth. "Fuck knows… I'd take her any which way I could."

"Yeah, I would too," Jack says sitting there all gawky and uncomfortable.

"It's fucking baffling… I don't know what ever gave her that idea. That she ain't enough for a miserable sonofabitch like me."

"At least you didn't propose to her, buy her an engagement ring, set about planning your wedding only to find out that she was still hung up on some hopeless redneck loser."

_It surprises him. _This sudden self procrastination, the making fun of himself, something painful. Like a friendly dog, rolling over baring his throat. Decides to return the trust, baring his own. Doesn't feel like he has much left to loose. No dignity left to protect.

"Yeah, but I was _damn _close with the ring, I tell you Doc. The girl sure looks good with a wedding band on her finger."

"Or a diamond…" Jack mumbles into his glass. Sawyer can't help feeling a kindred kind of affection for the guy.

"Yeah of course, you snooty bastard. Of course you bought her the biggest gaudiest rock you could find!"

He empties his glass and looks up to find Jack studying him, serious now.

"So what stopped you? You know, from asking her?"

"You gotta' be kidding me right! What fucking difference would it have made? We'd get married in some obscure place under fake id's. It's not like it would have _meant _anything!"

"I don't know, it might still have mattered - to _her_. She might not have cared much about the legality of it…"

"Yeah… maybe you're right. Maybe I should've just fucking asked her." Closes his eyes, feeling how the coach sways beneath him. "I fucking love her Doc. I love her and why the hell is it so hard for her to just deal with it?" He's drunk, drunk, drunk. These things dripping out of his mouth. He doesn't want to own up to them. It's someone else. He blames it on the alcohol.

"So, why aren't you going after her? Why are you back here in Bali getting drunk with me?"

"I don't remembering inviting you in Doc, 'sides - I'm _done_ going after her Jacky-boy. That's the goddamn truth." _Or a lie. _Damned if he knows.

"Okay, if you say so."

"Yep. I reckon I've been running my ass off, chasing her tail since the day we met. Is about time I let the girl do some chasing of her own."

"So, you're waiting for _her_ to come after _you_?"

He is dazed and sort of out of it, but the conceited tone is hard to miss. Sawyer pries his eyes open and twists his neck to give Jack a 'fuck-off' glare. Jackass. Their ongoing pissing contest.

"It's about _fucking_ time! Hell, I'm done chasing."

"Yeah… no… That won't happen. You can forget her coming after you. She won't."

"What the _fuck _do you know about anything? Said she loves me. Bet she never said that to you _huh,_ Doc?" He's wavering dangerously close to a level of childishness where poking his tongue at the other man seems like a good idea. "Nah, didn't think so."

That shuts Jack up effectively. Thank god. Hah, never said it to him, that much is clear. An uncomfortable silence. No one able to say anything. Until Sawyer sits up, shakily refilling Jack's glass. Spilling about half of it on the table. Wipes it away with the palm of his hand, which in turn is wiped on his jeans.

"I'll wait. I ain't nothing if not patient."

"Yeah, right," Jack says, smirking. "And for someone who is _'done chasing her' _- you seem pretty eager to get her on the line."

"Whaddaya' mean _'on the line'_?"

"I saw your phone when I picked it up, all numbers on your screen, every single call you've made is to her. So how is that not chasing?"

"Some people sure are busybodies," he grumbles. Doesn't know why he even bothers talking to the guy. "Ain't none of your business, _none _of it. Now if you don't mind, I have some drinking to do. Gonna' guzzle myself stupid."

Jack looks up at him, smiling now, a friendly, tipsy kind of smile, still there is clarity there in his eyes. He knows what he's saying.

"You're doing a great job of it already."

"Piss off Doc," he says good-naturedly

"If you don't mind, I'll stay and help you finish this bottle."

"Suit yourself."

So they sit there, drinking and talking, actually fucking, honest to god small-talking, as if they're good old buddies. Teasing each other and Jayzus Mary and all saints, he must be beyond intoxicated, and he'll never admit to it, ever, but he's sort of enjoying the company. They stay clear of her. Don't mention her name again. _Too painful, too loaded._

At one point he makes it over to his bed. Collapses there, while Jack snores on the sofa. They might be embarrassed and awkward tomorrow. But somehow, he doesn't think so. As if they've passed a milestone. Grown up a bit. He wonders if it might have been like this, had they never had Kate between them.

…..

Life, living like a useless parasite on Hurley's limitless generosity at the Emporium isn't all that bad. He hangs out with both Jack and Hurley a whole lot. Does what he can for Hurley, even tags along with Henry, tries his hand at being a snoop. No, the days are doable, he finds a way to stay busy, to keep his mind off her.

It's the nights that he dreads. The first week back he does the bar scene with Jack. Steers clear of the somewhat brazen local bar-girls. Most of the time wondering what the fuck for. It's not like there isn't an abundance of beautiful, exotic women out there eager to strip him out of his jeans. Jack gets lucky most nights. The man sure can pull, in his restrained, intellectual anal kind of way. Probably has everything to do with being a 'doctor', that'd clinch the deal in most parts of the world he reckons. _No, _Jack does alright. He on the other hand, he who is a bonafide _man-whore_, has been all of his adult life - he behaves like a bereaved husband. And that's exactly what it feels like. As if someone has died. As if he doesn't really exist anymore.

The sultry tropical nights, as if made for love. He usually has a few drinks just to keep Jack company, kick-start his game. After that Jack normally couldn't care less whether he stays or goes. Seems happy to play the field a bit and Sawyer can't say he blames him. Envies him in a way that is hard to admit. How he finally seems to have managed to evict her from his brain, from his heart.

"How did you do it?" he asks Jack one of those evenings, hanging by the bar. Jack eyeing tonight's offerings and Sawyer, well – _hell_. Peering down his drink as usual.

"Do _what_?" Jack's distracted. A tall blonde making her way towards the bar. Stunning backless dress, sun-kissed skin and high heels. Wishes he could see her with Jack's eyes. He bets he could snitch her from right under his nose. No effort at all. In fact, she casts him a sly glance as she slides up onto the barstool next to Jack.

"How the _hell_ did you move on?"

"Oh that… I'm just a little ahead of you." Jack flashes a confident smile at the blonde. "You'll get there. It's just a matter of time…"

"I know that," he snaps, though honestly he can't see it now. Can't see how a wholesome blonde with pouty lips and minimal baggage can possibly compete with the hopelessly fucked-up mess that is Kate. Can't explain it, never could, has given up on trying.

Saunters off back to the hotel; the air fragrant with frangipani blossom and spices, taunting him. Missing her. Missing her so much he could just scream. Girls approaching him on the beach-walk. Flirty, cute little things he'd have eaten up whole before. He ought to find a release for some of his restlessness, he knows he might feel better. But he just can't. She's screwed him up, changed the default setting from free spirit to goddamn prisoner. The thought of screwing someone else. It just. _Shit. _Who would have thought he'd turn out to be such a stickler for monogamy? And he's not even _'with'_ her anymore. _Ain't no one asking him to be faithful._

…..

He grows more and more irate. Can feel something gliding away from him, out of his hands. His sanity wobbly, unreliable. Sets Henry on her heels. But he must have misjudged the guy completely - _he's useless. _Not even a lead on her and hell, she has her phone for god's sake. He must be able to trace her somehow. But every time Sawyer brings it up he says he hasn't found anything and that it's proving trickier that he'd thought. Maybe the fact that she's a fugitive and she has experience being on the run. Knows how to hide her tracks.

Sawyer just doesn't believe it. He's seen her in action and she isn't all that good at melting in, especially here.

After a while he stops following Jack around the bars. Stays in his hotel room and just drinks. Trying futilely to numb himself. Still lying there unable to do anything else but think of her, no matter how sloshed he is. Knowing he ought to just stumble down to the friendly, bustling beach bar a few strides south, pick up some young hot thing and screw himself out of this slump. _Erase her. _And maybe, a few years ago, that's exactly what he'd have done. Would have been a hell of a lot healthier than this, lying there alone in bed, obsessing about her. Mind crystal clear in spite of a valiant effort to embrace the daze. Imagining her. Not a random woman, not one of the pretty young things he'd inevitably bump into at the bars. Just her and her smooth creamy skin, the way she'd breathe if he hit the right spot. Her eyes, the way she could do the half-closed lids without looking like a moron. _Shit._

That first time with her, at the cages. Dirty and scared, both off their kilter. He hadn't known what hit him. Her, shouting at him only to reach in and kiss him, just like that. Had fallen like a stone. Right there and then.

_"What was that for?" _Doors thrown wide open to his heart, the softness of her lips conquering him, storming him. Stunned by the unexpected desperation.

_"I don't know."_

What had come after. He can hardly bear to think of it now. Had seen his chance and just taken it. The intensity of that first time. A cyclone, chewing him up, heaving breaths, skin and sweat and the most surprising thing of all. The flutter of something new. A frail little love. Not ready to admit it but no choice, _no choice._

How many nights he'd lain awake in his and Juliet's bed trying to resist thinking of it, of her. How those images had found their way back into his mind. Had fought them because they had inevitably made him doubt himself, his life with Jules. Had turned everything upside down. Over and over again.

Like a technicolored movie, more real than life. The light, filtered through her hair as she hung above him. The brilliant green of her eyes, catching the reflexes of the sun. And how it had freaked him out, finding that it wasn't just a fuck. Something unprecedented about it. Suddenly acutely aware of everything about her. Her pleasure, wanting to go where no one else had gone before. Deeper, more profoundly. He'd tumbled around on the filthy ground with her, pushing into her, wanting to leave his mark. Her little gasps, and the whole time, moving inside of her, wondering what the hell he was to her. Just someone to take out her frustrations on, just a body, needs that needed a release. Had not been able to let go properly. Hadn't been able to just relax and feel. He'd waited for her to say something._' I love you'_. His name. _'You're amazing Sawyer'_. Anything. Only she hadn't. At one point or another, even that hadn't meant anything. Everything of importance, the only thing of importance, her, underneath him. Her skin slicked against his, struggling to lift her head up to kiss him, sticks and leafs and crap stuck in her hair. Something about it, wild. The girl unleashed. A first for him. Not all about the sex, or stealing her money or using her in any way. _Just about her._

He'd been lost after that. Had left something behind. Something buried in her, planted. Something he never got back, like a hostage, a piece of him. Nonrefundable. Four years later he's still suffering the consequences. Lying on a bed, infatuated with the illusion of that girl. Not a real person.

…..

Hurley's plans are falling into place quickly now. _Boat: check. Captain: check. Crew: check. Desmond: check _- though how that had worked out, Sawyer doesn't even want to know. According to Hurley, the only thing holding them back now are the seasonal high waves, having to wait for them to subside - though that sounds like complete nonsense to Sawyer. Then again, what on earth does he know about boats? Or about anything for that sake.

They're having breakfast in Hurley's office and Miles is conspicuously missing. Hurley's secretary setting the coffee table for them. Tall, elegant girl with jet-black wavy hair down to her waist. Her uniform hugging the curves just right. He'd flirt with her if he weren't so sopping miserable. Can't be bothered. Grunts a_ 'thank you' _when she pours him coffee.

"Where's our cheerful friend?"

"Ah… just, off somewhere. Has a job to take care of. Some bigwig just passed away, the family wants him to, you know, talk to the dude."

"Oh is _that _so…?"

"Yep. Yeah that's right."

He has no doubt Hurley is lying through his teeth. Something about the uncomfortable squirming. It doesn't sit right.

"_'Big job'_, my ass," he mutters. "He's with _her_, ain't he?"

Hurley shrugs and chases his bacon around the plate. Sawyer drops it, not like he's going to go after her anyway. She can come to him. When she's good and ready, she can come crawling back to him and maybe, just maybe he'll give her another chance. Stares down into his coffee.

_Oh, who's he kidding,_ he'd have her back in a heartbeat. Hurley passes him a brown manila envelop, shoving it across the table, almost toppling over the little glass can of milk.

"What's this?"

"Your new papers. Arranged them while you were away… with.. yeah you know."

"Herbert James…? What am I, _ninety five_?"

"Yeah, well sorry. I wanted to use some real identities, we just picked them off a couple of…"

"A couple of what..? A _couple_...!"

A lump in his throat. Hurley busying himself with his eggs, dripping some of the yellow down his chin, he's so nervous. Pretending he hasn't heard.

"Okay buddy, spit it out! What's _her _name big guy?"

"Ethel Joe…" mumbled, mouth full, napkin pressed against his chin. The rest of the face blushing sweetly.

"And…?"

"Ethel Joe James."

"Shit." _Hell no, _he doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to ask but does anyway. "Why you have to pick a _goddamn_ couple?"

He is an ungrateful asshole, horribly thankless – but the names, sharing the same last name -it pisses him off. More than that, it makes him wants to weep for it all. The loss of her, what they could have been. Could have been Ethel and Herb, _just two regular Joes._

"I thought you might have appreciated _'James'_... Sorry, it was pretty slim pickings and I thought… you dudes would…."

"You thought we might last a little longer than a fortnight, didn't you?

"Yeah well… yeah I did." Hurley pushes his chair back a bit, slumping against the back of his chair. Big belly squeezed against the table edge.

"Sorry to disappoint you. I could have saved you the goddamn trouble."

"It's not too late," Hurley says cautiously, not sounding very convinced himself.

"Yeah it is… It's about four years too late buddy-boy."

"So are you still coming Sawyer? After the… you know, with her."

"You can mention her name Hoss. I won't break down in tears."

Easy to be tough, play indifferent sitting in Hurley's plush office, bacon on his plate, fresh mango juice, steaming hot coffee in his cup. Easy enough.

"Dude… I don't. Well, are you coming?"

"Yeah I am, but she still _ain't._ That stands buddy-boy." How many times does he have to say it? He still doesn't quite trust Hurley. Something about him. That naïve quality he has, like someone who believes in happiness.

"I thought, you might want to see her…"

"Yeah I _do_ alright! But I don't wanna' see her let loose in that shithole again. Never again buddy! Ain't happening. Look, I jumped to get her out of there the first time around, lost Juliet the second, I'll be damned if she's going back again a third time."

"Alright dude, I was just saying…"

"Well _don't_!" Snappity-snap. Feels stupid for being such a jerk about it, after all that Hurley has done for him. But he can only handle so much.

….

One night, lolling around on the sun chair outside his suite by the pool, having downed a considerable amount of alcohol, she answers.

Maybe by accident, he doesn't know. But somehow she presses the right button and he can hear nothing but he knows she's listening. The words jumbling in his throat, wanting to get out but not quite knowing how to. He's called her so many times. Hundreds perhaps, and never before has she answered.

"_Kate_…?" he breathes into the phone, knowing damn well she won't answer. But perhaps she might listen.

"I… I've tried… Don't hang up, not yet."

_And she doesn't._

Perhaps she's simply put her phone down somewhere and left him talking like an ass, but he doesn't think so. Can feel her listening, can sense her energy. His mouth blabbering on, as if on auto pilot. He doesn't really know what the hell he's saying, sufficiently greased by the booze and urged on by nerves. But he knows she's listening. He tells her about Hurley, and Miles and even about Jack's escapades. Tells her about the weather and about nothing in particular. A great little eatery he's found, just near their old house in Sanur.

Says he can't sleep without her. And it's downhill from there. The phone pressed against his ear, trying to catch her breathing, any sign of life, a cough or a sigh. Wants to say sorry, but knows it will never make up for what he said.

_Tells her he misses her._

"You still wearing the stupid ring, ain't you?"

The gasp on the other side and he thinks, _fuck it. _He'll go all out, won't hold back.

"What the hell is wrong with you! Scrapering off at first sign of trouble... what the fuck happened!"

Rears himself back in. This won't do. Has to keep her on the line, bring her in. Tie her down. It's like one of those movies, with a sweaty nervous hostage negotiator, some unstable, irrational madman on the other side, holding a gun to some poor schmuck's temple. Back peddles, wants to remind her of who they are, who they were.

"Back on the island… you know that first time. That damned kiss. I did it, just for kicks, but you… you kissed me back girl, like you _meant _it. You went in for an all-time _'kick all other kisses in the ass' _kiss."

Doesn't even know where he's going with this. Walking the thin line, balancing, holding his breath.

"I know you felt it Freckles. Same as me. I know it was fucked up and that I ain't someone to write home about. But you _felt_ it and so did I. And it's still here, you can't say it ain't."

_Say something baby. _Say something. Be brave, for once, have some fucking balls.

"You know it ain't something you can blot out. A thousand Juliets or Jacks, ain't gonna' make it go away. You can run those pretty legs into stubs, can hook up with every snot-nosed doctor you meet but it ain't ever gonna' help. You gonna' miss me and want me anyway and it won't pass, won't ever get better. You _know_ it, I know you do."

He has to breathe, aware of how he must sound, drawing his breath like a dying sea lion. He finds his hands shaking. This is it. Has to woo her, has to find a way in, he has to say the right thing and it's an oxymoron. Him saying the right thing. It's a contradiction in itself. Never happens, but then again – this whole freaking disaster, falling in love for the first fucking time when you're well into your thirties, it ain't normal either. He could have lived the rest of his days happy, immoral, hard – had he never met her in the first place.

"And Freckles... who the hell says _'two'_ ain't a family?

_Is she still listening? _He feels stupid talking to himself like this. The pressure to say the right thing. Do or die. _Come back, come back._ Strengthens himself with a large gulp from the bottle._ Fuck,_ he's a regular old wino. Tries not to slur too much.

"You and me Sweetcakes, it's enough. More than enough." _And shit,_ it's not working out. He can't seem to find the right words, the right tone. Should have planned this out. Hell, it ain't like he hasn't had time enough to work out a script, draft it and perfect it. This, it's a disaster.

"So, this is how it's gonna' be Cutiepooh; you're gonna' tell me where you are and I'll come get you - _right _now. I can be out of here in two red seconds. And we gonna' make this right, _you_ and _me_."

"I'm sorry." Her voice so faint, so distant he can hardly make out the words. Just an echo across the sound waves.

"_Sorry_? You kidding me, right? Sorry?" Inhales, fills his lungs up with anger. Has no right to feel like this, but he does anyway. It all comes crashing down. The last few weeks, not knowing where she is, if she's okay, if he'll ever see her again. "No, _you_ don't get to do that! Just disappear like this. You're gonna' tell me where you are Kate or I'll close the door for good. I can't do this anymore."

_Shit. _The ultimatum. _Shit! _Useless with her, pathetic is what he is. Can't take it back now. Can't do anything. Just drives the stake further in every time he opens his damn mouth. And then the timely click. The shutting down all lines of communications. Realizes only too late that he never had time to tell her he loves her. _Loves her._

...

After that, he doesn't call her again. He can't. He even considers going back to the States, maybe it's time he sucked up to Cassie, made things right with her kid - his kid. But he pushes that aside too. Doesn't have it in him. Isn't ready to leave this, her behind yet. Not completely. And it even seems pointless to go back to the island now. Fact is. He hasn't decided yet what kind of guy he wants to be. The one who simply looks after number one or the fool who chases after a dream, tries to do the right thing. For her. He's still on the fence. But then Hurley comes waving with the tickets to Jakarta. They're supposed to meet up with Miles there, and he finds that he can't refuse. Hoping she'll be there, though he makes Hurley swear she won't. In their seats on the airplane, Hurley across the aisle digging into the horrible airline food and Jack next to him, reading the paper.

"So you're not setting me up right, big guy?" he wheezes, trying to catch the flight attendant's attention for a refill of his glass.

"Dude, I'm not running a dating service."

"So, I've got your word? Won't be stuck in the frigging _Love Boat _from hell - with her - right? _Right_?"

"Yeah man, of course! Sure you got my word. She's all set up in a safe place now, I'm not about to bring her back there."

In a _'safe place'_. The implication, what he couldn't do. Couldn't even take care of her for more than a few measly days. Useless.

"Dude… you ever thought, maybe you should just move on?"

"Yeah well it has crossed my fucking mind,_ wiseguy_!" he sneers and closes his eyes, pretending to sleep.

….

He walks, long strides, taking one where Jack takes two. His lungs not able to absorb any oxygen. He takes short, quick breaths, tries to stabilize his breathing. Impossible. The sun pressing down on his shoulders, the air strangely stifling, for being near the sea, unmoving, vibrating. He has a migraine from it. Makes him want to strike out against someone.

"Doc, if she's there, I'll _kill _you," he growls stomping his heavy shoes against the asphalt. "_Fuck_, it's hotter than hell… this place."

"She's not there. I _told _you. Hurley won't let her come."

"Yeah, well, hell shoot me for not trusting him." Hurley had stuck a piece of paper with the address in his hand and ditched them at the airport. Something fishy going on and he hate this feeling, of being cuckolded, being brought behind the light. It's usually his job.

"You trust _me_?"

"Piss off Jack. Next you gonna' wanna' hold my fucking hand as well."

Mocks him, but honestly, can't hold a conversation with Jack right now. He's so jittery and nervous he can hardly walk straight. Hope she won't be there. She better not be there. But. _What if she is? God. _Wants to smell her. If he walks, eyes closed, sun beating down on his head, he can almost smell her. _Shit._ No, it just smells of rotten trash and sewer. He's loosing it, scared out of his mind. Up until now, there has always been that hope. That last straw.

They walk along the Tanjung Priok harbor. The ships docked there, as if from a different era, a time long gone. Coolies running up and down narrow planks of wood with enormous sacks of cement. Small, wiry bodies burnt auburn, , all skin and bones and muscles stretched beyond the tolerable. The ships, funny pointed wooden ships, like something out of a pirate story. Jack points ahead.

"Ought to be that one."

"She on it, you're a dead man Doc!"

"Yes, because I'm just _that _eager to reunite you two," Jack says dryly, obviously running out of patience quickly. And he knows he's being ridiculous. Something in the air. As if he can sense her near. Knowing damn well it's only wishful thinking. If she's there. If only she's there. He'll win her over. Win her back and he knows it's illogical. He doesn't want her to come. Doesn't want to see her go back to the island. But damn. Damn, needs her.

_Needs. Her._

They clomp up the narrow ledge, a wooden plank with steps hacked into it to prevent them from slipping. Well, he guesses he won't be hitting the bars here. One sip and he'll be in the water. Looks down and it doesn't look all that tempting. Brown, soupy water, like sludgy gravy. Garbage floating around in it and the heat bringing out the stench in a spectacular way. The boat is a wooden marvel too, one that looks like a finicky carpenters nightmare. There are two levels of cabins, all complete with shutters painted in white and moss green. A mast for a sail and the thing is clearly ancient. What the hell had Hurley been thinking? They're supposed to brave the big old ocean in that thing? It looks like a cross between a pointed oriental slipper and a Mississippi riverboat and about as safe as the former.

Holds his breath as he sets his foot on deck. Hoping against all hope, that she'll come out. Any second now, those shutters will fly open and she'll come rushing out in a flutter of arms and legs and long chocolate curls. Like some movie, throw her arms around his neck and tell him. She loves him. Can't be without him._ It will all end well._

But of course, that's not what happens. It's Hurley who comes lumbering towards them, with Miles on his heels. The disappointment like a sack of cement just poured down his throat, setting inside his belly. She's not there. Wants to stomp his feet now, like a kid. Wants to fight someone. And still, it's beyond stupid. This is _exactly _what he asked for, what he wanted. They have all kept their promises.

...

They eat lunch together, huddled around a narrow table in the canteen or what the hell you call it on a damn boat. There's a whole crew on board already and they're only waiting for the captain. And Desmond, who is due to arrive the next day, Jack scheduled to pick him up at the airport at noon.

"Hey, you might wanna cut down on the drinking, Buddy." Miles says dryly as he pops open another beer.

"Mind your own goddamn beeswax."

"Just saying. You gonna' have to pull your own weight boss, no one willing to haul your drunk ass around the island."

He chooses not to reply. Down his beer in one go instead, demonstratively.

"So when are we setting sail?" Jack asks, looking like an apple-cheeked kid. Sawyer can't remember when he last saw the guy this happy. As if he's truly looking forward to revisit shithole island. As for himself, the cement in his stomach has hardened, he doesn't give a shit. Pushes every thought of her away. And it works pretty well as he downs his third beer in a row and eats a minimal amount of fried rice just to provide the liquid with some company.

"We'll have to downtown to immigration and get our passports stamps and our permits approved and hopefully we can be off tomorrow," Hurley says, shoveling in his food with a frightening speed. " Mr Mafud, the captain-dude will be along later too with some of his guys."

"So we all have to go to this immigration thing?" Sawyer honestly doesn't want to move. Wants to find his cabin and just lie down with a couple of cold beers. Frankly, Miles probably has a point. He fears he's well on his way towards developing a severe drinking problem. No, no he doesn't fear it. _He doesn't care._ Just wants what he wants.

"Yeah well, no you can stay if you want to. Your passport is good to go. Got you all the permits and exit stamps when we had them made."

"Yeah yeah. Don't worry 'bout me. I'll be fine. Just show me your minibar and I think I'll be set."

Moves his food around on his plate, sipping his beer from the bottle. No. _Wait a freaking minute! _They're trying to dump him.

"_Hepp hepp hepp,_ no way Jose', you _ain't _leaving this shipwreck without me! I know what's going on here! You gonna' go an' pick _her _up, ain't you?"

"What a genius," Miles mutters.

"We're not picking _anyone_ up dude," Hurley looks at him earnestly. " I have arranged for Henry to make sure she gets her money, no need to meet her."

"Ehepp, wind it back big guy… you know where she is don't you?"

"Yeah, alright, okay, yeah I do." Hurley evades his eyes, peering at his hands, cutlery looking ridiculously small in them. "So, you wanna' come along…? No problem. It's up to you."

"No problem at all. But you come, she'll know we're off. And she'll be packed and ready within five blue seconds," Miles says. Reckons himself such a damn comedian. Asshole. "But by all means, _join _us Boss!"

Surprises himself. A big fat _'no' _that comes out without warning. Not what he wants to say.

"No. No, I'll just stay here and befriend your minibar buddy-boy." And he finds that for all his _want-want-wants_, the wish to keep her safe, to keep her from tagging along is bigger after all. Wants to be that guy, and it's a revelation even to him. Wants to be the guy who put her first. Not like Jackass, schlepping her back the first opportunity he had. Wants to be better than that.

He grabs hold of Jack's shirt sleeve when he makes to stand up.

"You tell her Jack," he swallows hard. Hates having to use Jackass as their go between. "Tell her… you know... Oh _hell_, just tell her I'm sorry, okay?"

Jack just nods and pulls away.

"Or you know, better not tell her. She'll know… right…?" he adds before Jack slips through the door out into the glaring sunlight on deck.

He decides to allow himself this one last day to brood and drink and feel sorry for himself. After that, it'll have to be enough. _No more._ Not one more minute of self pity.

Lies down on the bunk. Floating somewhere half down, scrabbling into a dream. No, not a dream – a memory. One morning in back in the pavilion in Yogyakarta. She'd woken up, or at least gotten out of bed before him. He'd lain there, peeking, pretending to still be asleep. Had watched her get up, stark naked. Her back towards him, leaning forward to peep through the curtains. Had caught the sunrays in a spectacular way. Like a white outline of her body. Her hair dark and messy and sort of cut so that it lies like an arrow pointing south on her back. Her waist, small and that deep indent at the base of her spine before her ass swelled out. Totally natural, unconscious of him watching her. She'd stretched her arms up high above her head. Even raised herself up on her toes, as if reaching for the ceiling. Muscles playing across those arms. Had turned towards him, a smile so wide, he'd forgotten to pretend to sleep. She'd looked happy. At peace. There in their little cocoon,_ with him_.

Doesn't know why, but this is etched into his brain, behind his eyes. Like a ghost, she visits him, almost every time he falls asleep. Comes sneaking in, tip toeing into his brain. Before he's awake enough to know that it's just an illusion, just a mirage. Wishful thinking.

_Maybe,_ he thinks. _Maybe if he'd asked her to marry him. She'd have stayed._

…

He wakes up with an involuntary jerk. The empty beer bottle falls down from the bunk, hits the floor but doesn't shatter. It's dark and he has to feel his way towards the door to find the light switch. Hell, he's slept away all day. Though come to think of it. It's better than lying here second-guessing himself and wondering what on earth he's doing.

By seven, he's in the canteen, having dinner all by his lonesome. The damn captain, Malmud, Mantub or whatever the heck his name is, hasn't shown up and neither has anyone else. He sits there, waited on by two fumbling, bumbling teenage boys. They dig up some more beer for him and he has a sort of pleasant evening on his own, though Hurley and his sidekicks sure are taking their sweet time. _And where the hell is the Maffoud-guy for that sake?_

It's not until near midnight, once he has resigned to trying to sleep in his cabin again, that it dawns on him. A screeching red flag shooting up.

_He's been had._

He's such an idiot. He's been dumped. Ditched. Left behind. Stood up. Totally, _completely,_ undeniably had.

They're not leaving on this rotten old wooden bucket. And they sure as hell aren't bringing him. _Why,_ he has no clue. They'd seemed pretty eager to have him join them. All he can think is that somehow, in that sneaky, sly way she's has – she must've gotten to them all. Brought them over on her side. His plan must have become hers. Now he sits on a worm-eaten toy-boat and she is probably on some sleek cruiser with the rest of them, half way across the Pacific. _Hah. _Smiling and clinking glasses of champagne together.

_Way to con a con._

...

_Thank you so much for still reading. Boring...? hope it wasn't too mind-numbingly dull even though it admittedly is a bit slow as chapters go. Hoping I can post the next one soon. Already working on it, though it's a lot trickier than this. I'll try to get the next one out before Ramadhan holidays start in roughly a week._


	33. Another long con

_Thank you so, so, so, so much for the reviews and for the patience. I know it has taken far too long time to get this chapter out. I had all intentions on posting it before the holidays but then came down with a nasty bout of parasites... still trying to shake the evil buggers. Anyway, here goes. Hope you can have some oversight with the obvious flaws of the story. I'm hoping it will all come together the way I had intended but I might be on shaky ground right now._

_Rated: M for language and mature content._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

…

**Another long con**

…

"Miles, what… what are you doing here?"

She's embarrassed to find him there outside her hotel room. Embarrassed for anyone to see her like this. Blocks his way, her body wedged between door and door post. Doesn't want him peering in either.

"Came to bring your documents," he says looking like he'd rather be anywhere else as well. "Can I come in or you gonna' let me stand her and make everyone think I'm '_that'_ kind of room-service?'

She has no desire to let him in. Ashamed of who she is, stripped down – absolutely and utterly pointless. A mess. The room is a dump too. The walls smell of fungus and the ceiling has brown stains, a disgusting place. The sort of cheap, seedy venue where rooms are rented by the hour and not by straying lovers it appears, but for business transactions of all sordid sorts that she rather not think about. It's enough how the rhythmical squeaking of a bed through the wafer thin walls keeps her awake at night. Enough how sometimes there are people arguing, laughing, crying.

"Oh, I thought maybe… Jack or Hurley or… Henry might bring them."

She looks around behind her, as if truly seeing the dissaray she lives in for the first time. Her clothes strewn everywhere. Paint peeling off he walls. Two garbage bags by the door she's been meaning to throw out.

"Nope. Just good old Miles. Ever your faithful servant."

She hangs her head and moves aside reluctantly. Finds she has little choice. Gives him passage and can't pretend she doesn't notice how he surveys the little dark hotel room. The obvious chaos. How low she has fallen from the tidy little make-believe life in Bali. But Miles is way too suave to show whether the room or Kate gross him out . If he's the least put off, he doesn't let anything on. He coolly hands her the envelop with her passport and she sits down on the bed with it. Doesn't invite him to have a seat because there is only the bed and it's already awkward as hell.

Suddenly conscious of her appearance. How lately, unless she's doing one of the bar rounds to pick some pockets for fresh cash, she doesn't bother much with her own hygiene either. Dressed in an oversized shirt, his sweatshirt, the one he'd forced her to tie around her hips on the ferry over from Bali. It's more for comfort than sentimentality, at least that's what she tells herself. Not wearing neither a bra nor make-up, her hair in a tangle, unbrushed and unwashed. She knows she must look like she's going through some kind of crisis, but honestly, she's not. She's fine. _Just fine._

"You look radiant," he says dryly, eyebrow drawn up in mock appreciation and she has to laugh. It feels unfamiliar. It's been a long time since she has even smiled. Has missed him and something about him makes her ache for Sawyer. It's the same strain of cockiness. That smug brand of humour. And it attacks her like a large man-eating shark, drags her down under. Oh crap – she'd been doing so well. Hadn't thought of him for days, weeks even. No that's a lie. Thinks about him all of the time, but only because she can't control it. But she hasn't allowed herself to miss him. To poke around in those sentiments. Pushes it all away now too. She digs around in the envelop and fishes up her passport, flicking it open. _The stupid name._

"Ethel Joe James… Seriously Miles, who's idea was this?"

"No one's. Those are real names. Recycled, you know, dead old bird… yadayada, and bang, fugitive in softest hotel-suite in the whole Far East has a brand new identity. Use it well my friend, that's all I've got for you."

She stops cold. Something about the breezy buddy-buddyness catches like a sharp fishbone in her throat. He doesn't want her asking about the stupid name. Miles pacing in front of her, picking at his own shirt buttons, nervously as if he's trying to pull them off their threads, studying the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

"What did _he_ get Miles? Did the dead old bird have a husband?"

He screws his whole face up, that funny upper lip almost touching his nostrils, a weird kind of sneer, looking out through her so-called window which has an excellent view of some pipes going up to the next floor's air conditioning units.

"What do you care? Anyway, why would _he_ get new papers?"

"Just drop the act Miles…What was it?"

"Herbert James… Congrats, I guess. You guys are two regular married Joe's now," he says with an uncomfortable smile, peering through the window as if there were something extraordinarily fascinating happening out there. Seems ready to leg it.

"Look in the envelop, it's all there. A whole story…You guys are teachers, traveling around the region. There are all sorts of diplomas and references too, Hurley set it all up for you – in case you guys would have… you, you know, wanted to work somewhere…"

"Oh." Hurley. It's too much. They'd obviously not deserved any of his kindness. What's wrong with her?

"Hey, I like what you've done with the place."

"Yeah, well I'll give you the number to my decorator," she snorts, the kind of laughter that turns into a sob. Damn it. Not in front of Miles. Not exactly the kind of friend who will willingly lend a shoulder fro crying and weeping and beating your brow against. But god, she feels like weeping now. For that life she sees in front of her. For Hurley, for trying to make it possible and for what had they done with it. Screwed it up, fucked it up in a spectacular fashion as usual.

"I'm sorry Kate," he mutters and it's about the last thing she'd expected to hear from him.

"It's okay… It doesn't matter anymore. Sorry Miles, it's just... shit. I'm so…" She can't even say it, How stupid she feels. As if she's fooled them all. Conned them into thinking she could be that person. Be an Ethel Joe, actually be enough of a normal person to make it work with Herbert.

"Old Herb isn't exactly surfing the silver moon either..."

"Drinking?"

"It's not like I care either way but yeah, yes – drinking would be an understatement – he's half pickled by now."

"Like you said; what do you care?" Can't help being nasty to him. Shooting off a little poisonous dart. Doesn't need to hear it. Doesn't need to picture him in a state, drinking himself to oblivion. _Her fault,_ all her fault.

"Hah, no, I don't. Not one bit." That cat-like face of his, pretending not to care about any of them. But he does. She can feel it. "So, what have you been busying yourself here in the big city?"

"Not much. Been trying to keep afloat."

Once she had run out of cash she had resorted to her old survival strategies. Hadn't been able to make herself call Hurley straight away. Hadn't wanted to confess that she'd screwed that one up too. So she'd made her way to some fancy hotel bar in the business district. The type filled to the brink with greedy red faced, pot bellied expatriates. The perfect hunting ground. And she's got this one down to a pat, it hadn't been much of an effort. She'd selected a pasty white, middle-aged man who seemed well down the bottle already, flirted and let him buy her a drink. Pretended to be a business woman, a little ditzy and naïve, her first time in Asia. And it was easy, almost too easy. She had snaked an arm around the back of his chair, nimble fingers dredging his suit pocket while he was busy eying her cleavage. Had excused herself to go and powder her nose, out the door, into a cab. Counting her winnings. She had repeated this, in a few different hotels, several nights in a row until she had enough to last her for a little while.

"Yeah, Hurley-boy has been worried about you."

"He didn't have to. It's not my first time on the run. I get by just fine."

"Yeah, obviously," he mutters, demonstratively eyeing the shoddy hotel room.

"So when are we leaving Miles? Is everything ready?"

"Almost, just a few more days now. I'll stay in Jakarta with you, we'll wait for Hurley and Jack to fly in. The boat is being prepped"

"I don't know why. Had a feeling you'd try to skip along without me."

"Are you kidding? You're the most macho of the bunch. We're gonna' need someone with balls." He checks his wristwatch, as if he urgently needs to be somewhere else. In some bar somewhere perhaps, eyeing up the local meat market. "So Chicolitas, I better hit the road."

"You wanna' stay here?" She stands up, nodding at the twin bed she's been sitting on, half covered in her shirts, tops, socks and underwear. Wouldn't be all that tempted sleeping in a pile of dirty laundry herself either and she isn't surprised that he turns it down without even blinking.

"Nah, nope, I have my own hotel booked. I know how it is. You'd just end up trying to sleep with me and well, my heart belongs to another."

Approaches him awkwardly. Cuffs him over the head, but next thing, he's hugging her tightly. _Miles. Hug_. The pieces don't fit, don't match up. Fights the urge to push him away. Then again, she needs it too. Needs someone to tell her it'll be alright. He breaks off the hug, brusquely, as if he wasn't the one initiating it in the first place. As if she had assaulted him.

"You'll have a vermin infestation on your hands before you know it. Get it together Chica. It's not like anyone has died."

And she _knows_ that. Doesn't need Miles telling her. But that's what it feels like, as if he's gone, irrevocably out of her life. She closes the door behind Miles, lets the loneliness sweep her down. Finds that he leaves an emptiness behind that makes it hard to breathe. What has she done?

It had seemed like the right decision. An unselfish one_. It had_. But at times like this, the doubts creep in, they crawl across the floor like big fat spiders and she isn't strong enough to fight them. The memories assaulting her when she's at her most vulnerable.

That one specific morning that haunts her. One of those mornings when she had woken up to see his face near her own, lying on his side, observing her. His chest against her shoulder, his head supported by his hand. Smirking, smiling, watching her while his other hand had picked with the hair around her face. Something so radiant about him, the little wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. The coarse skin of his chin and upper lip, little sharp stubble, darker than his hair. The way he had looked at her, just before he'd pulled the sheet up above both of their heads. As if all was well in the world. As if nothing could get to them.

She tries to think of all the crass, crude things he's ever said to her. It makes it easier. Tries to recall all the times he's hurt her and she him. How horrible they can be to each other. Not how right his fingers felt, smoothing back her hairline, following the arch of her eyebrows. How he tasted, just about right, even through the slightly sour hint of morning breath. No. She can't allow herself those kind of extravagances. The only illusion she clings to now, is that one day she'll be able to say that she doesn't care anymore, that she did the right thing. She set him free and she did it because she loves him, the only truly unselfish thing she's ever done.

And meanwhile, the grinding pain at the pit of her stomach, eating away - all of the time. Telling her that perhaps, she was wrong. Maybe she's made a mistake.

…

He's half asleep in his bunk when he hears footsteps outside, on the deck. Someone mumbling, talking quietly out there. He is disoriented and caught off guard by it. Maybe they haven't dumped him here after all? Perhaps they have just stopped by a bar on their way back to the boat, downed a few drinks. He prepares to say something snarky, lying there on the bed glaring at the cabin door, waiting for it to open like some jealous wife.

It doesn't, so he steps outside. Finds a tall, lean man with skin like polished mahogany standing right outside his cabin, so close to the door he almost hits him squarely in the chin. Eye whites yellowish in the glare of the ship's fluorescent lightning and an old-fashioned captain's hat perched on top of his long gaunt face.

"Assalamu'alaikom," the man says. Nothing else. Remains there staring at Sawyer as if he's evil personified. As if horns have sprouted off his head or something.

"Howdy to you too," he says. "You must be the Captain?"

"Kapitan Maf'ud." Turns on his heels and walks away.

Hah. What do you know? So he's got a _captain_, and he's got this frigging gondola and nothing else. At this stage he's more intrigued than pissed. What the heck is Hurley up to?

…..

Wakes up early enough, lying fully dressed on the bed. Shirt soggy from sweat, a sticky and unpleasant kind of heat in the cabin. There is no type of ventilation, and the stuffy air is less than fragrant after a night of his beer-oozing breath. He wrenches of his shirt and fills up the little washbasin mounted on the short side of the room, splashes his face and his armpits with the cool water, somewhat invigorated and a tiny bit less fetid. Okay, it's a brand new day. Has to sass out the situation and map out his next step. It's either that or find some more booze and crawl back into bed and cry over her. Ha, never done _that _before. He bangs the cabin door open, letting in a shy sea breeze and the stink from the water too. _The damn captain. _Eager to have a little chat with him. What the hell is going on?

He skips down the staircase to the canteen on first deck level. The clumsy teenybops are already on duty, pouring coffee to the honorable captain, who's looking very dapper in daylight. Crisp white uniform jacket with brass buttons and his hat on the table, the rim shined to a high gloss. He dumps two large loads of sugar into the dainty coffee cup and stirs carefully. Swift rotating movements with the spoon.

"Good morning to ya'!" Sawyer does his normal fake buddy routine, flashing teeth and pretending jovial and easygoing all for the purpose of thawing the ice block off the man's finicky ass. Aware that his charm has little to collect here, he slides down on the seat opposite to him. "So, all by our lonesome huh?"

The man gives him a curt nod but hardly looks up. Keeps stirring his coffee. Probably grating the china with the spoon on purpose.

"So… not the talkative type huh?"

The yellow eyeballs, deigning him with a glance. Mouth set in a slim line. So much for the Indonesians being such a goddamn friendly people. One of the spotty kids pours Sawyer a cup too, almost as surly as the Captain. As if it's a huge sacrifice to pour a few drops of Java to a stranger.

"So, just you and me huh buddy?" he says and chucks a spoon of sugar in his own cup, purposely flinging the little granules all across the table. Knowing damn well that the venerable Captain is exactly the type to get his panties in a wad about it. And sure enough, the man's eyes flitter over the table top.

"Captain - not_ 'buddy'_," the man sneers in his heavily accented English. _Oh, testy_. Sawyer stirs his coffee with such vigor at least a third of it is splashed out on the saucer. Smugly noticing how the Captain's hand clenches, white knuckled around his fork. Fastidious sonofabitch.

"Alright then, glad we're clear about that. So what's up with the child labour on this frigate? Ain't no grown-ups dumb enough to work for ya'?"

Proceeds to devour his breakfast in messiest possible manner, letting food drop, egg drip down his chin and chewing with an open mouth. And frankly, he has no idea why, can't even pretend to have a purpose with wanting to annoy the man to the brink of a brain aneurysm. Other than that it helps take his mind of how fucking screwed over he's been himself, by his so-called friends and the woman he loves none the less.

…

He spends the next few hours sauntering around on the ship, snooping and poking around, obviously bugging the hell out of the surly Captain. Which of course is half the purpose. He finds him brooding over navigation charts on the upper deck, apparently unperturbed by the searing heat. Smoking those spicy clove cigarettes that all the locals seem to favour, somewhat masking the putrid stench from the sea.

"Oi Cappy, so what are the plans?" He sits down again, uninvited. Even steals a cigarette from the pack on the table. A move that doesn't go unnoticed or down well.

"Wait Tuan's order." The same answer for the umpteenth consecutive time. So in other words, do nothing. Like squeezing blood from a freaking stone.

They smoke in silence for a little while before Sawyer is driven away by the mute disdain and boredom. Watches the coolies unloading and loading goods on and off the neighboring boats. And his mind, wandering off to her - the fuck could she do this? _No._ He won't think of her. Can't do it anymore. As soon as he's decided what the heck to do, he'll find a way to move on, leave it all behind.

…

The only break from pacing around on deck, getting in everyone's business is a brief visit to the canteen for lunch. Some soup with fish heads and whole shrimps in it that is so goddamn hot he downs three beers in a row to prevent his tongue from shriveling up and die.

He has no idea what he's supposed to do. He has no cash to speak of, nothing but his stupid duffel bag and a stack of useless Ray Charles cassettes. Last night he also vowed to cut the 'brooding-and-feeling-sorry-for-himself-shit' short and he finds it particularly hard to go cold turkey a day like this. So he does what he always does when the answers lack him. _He smokes_. And smokes. And smokes. Wishes there were stronger things on board than the pale local beer that seems to make him want to tinkle constantly.

Needs to make his next move. Plan what to do next.

_So here's the deal._ He's floating on a wooden slipper smack in the middle of Jakarta's stinking cesspool of a harbor. It's so scorching hot, the sea is a boiling, simmering gumbo of garbage. The fumes enough to give you brain damage. As if that wasn't bad enough, he's stuck with a crew of five pimply kids, a cook who burps constantly. And in Sawyer's humble opinion – a cook with digestive problems doesn't spell gourmet food. As the crowning glory to this marvelous entourage; he's got a cranky, tongue-tied Captain who obviously has severe people issues.

He checks the ship out, starts beneath deck where the crew bunks are located and works his way upwards. And hell, on top deck there are some fancy facilities indeed. Four suites fully equipped with flat screen televisions and surround system and roomy bathrooms. White crisp linen and hardwood built in furniture. There is even a little dining room and bar on upper deck and he can't believe he'd missed it but the boat is enormous and seems to hide multiple treasures.

_Stay or go? _

He ought to just take his bag and get off, get himself back to Bali, to Henry and try to make some money. On the other hand, this ship, it could be useful. Might be excellent bait for one of his marks. Stay or go? He hasn't got the wildest idea. He likes his moves carefully plotted out. Might seem impulsive and free spirited but he likes to be in control and right now he's just free-falling. So he collects his belongings and promptly moves up to one of the extravagant suites instead. Lies there on the king size bed and it ought to feel a whole lot better, only – it doesn't.

Thinks of Cassie's girl. Of Cassidy herself. How he'd dumped them like garbage too. All those other women in his life. How many had he screwed over, left behind? He can hardly blame Kate. He's got all sorts of karma coming to him, certainly doesn't deserve this. Being put up on a luxury yacht.

He makes his way to the canteen again, marching into the kitchen as if he owns the place. Pimple kid giving him a judgmental smirk as he helps himself to a couple of bottles from the fridge.

"More beer Sir?"

"Yes pal, more beer. Hell, a lot more."

After downing his drinks, he feels queasy. And maybe it's being on a boat and all but he ain't never been prone to seasickness. It makes him grouchy and irritable and he can't be alone when he's like that. Any company, however unwilling will do. So he searches out the Captain yet another time. He's sitting in the little cabin on top, the one with the maps and steering wheel or whatever it's called on a goddamn boat. He's hardly welcoming when Sawyer stomps in there and starts picking at his things. Lifting things up to survey them, putting them down again sloppily.

"Getting a bit antsy Cappy, what's the whole idea here? What are we waiting for?"

The Captain leans back in his seat, long legs stretched out in front of him, picking his teeth with his index finger. Condescending glance at Sawyer as if he's a complete idiot. Some lower being who has accidentally crawled onto the ship.

"Wait for Tuan's order."

"Alright… well, when might we expect them?"

"Depend on Tuan."

"And where the fuck might this elusive sonofabitch be?"

A snooty shrug, lifting his pointed chin a bit. Not answering.

"Okay then Capitan… what's going on here? Who the fuck is this _Tuan_ asshole who finds it fit to leave us bobbing around in this toilet-water all day long?"

"You. _You_ boss." He indicates Sawyer carelessly with his thumb. _Grumpy sonofabitch, _he's obviously met his match. Damn Hurley, must have hired this creep on purpose. Sawyer is so annoyed he can't even come up with a decent insult to throw back. The prickly sensation of being toyed with.

"What are you mumbling about? Who the _hell_ told you, I was your goddamn boss?"

"Tuan Hugo."

The stinginess with words irks him enormously. Like pulling out toe-nails. And he doesn't like this. No sir. This, being left out in the left field.

"So Hugo is Tuan? We're waiting for Hugo?"

"No. _You_ Tuan Mister."

"Oh fuck it. It's like talking to a goddamn parrot."

"Tuan boss," he repeats snidely a smirk so fleeting, so elusive, he almost misses it. But it's there. Ah, fuck it, he's been yanking his chain all day long. Well aware of the misunderstanding. _Wily bastard_, entertaining himself royally on Sawyer's expense. Well, two can play that game.

"Okay, so if _I'm_ your goddamn boss, then… _you'll_ do everything I ask, right?"

"Ya Tuan."

"You do _huh_?" Leans over the Captains desk and drums his nails against the maps lying there. Pretending to follow a route with his finger. Probably the route to hell. It's all just for show anyway. "Great! Then this is what we're gonna' do. You're gonna' haul the frigging anchor and get your crafty ass moving. We're heading to Bali. _Pronto_. Got that?"

"Ya Tuan."

_Ya Tuan indeed. _He'll show the stuck-up flatfish where he can shove his fake smiles and pseudo politeness. Shit, he has to figure out what to do next. Right now it's all a blur. But one thing is for sure. He is in control and he ain't about to give a speck of it away. From here on, it will be on his premises. He'll decide his own fate.

"Now!"

"Ya Tuan." The Captain shuffles to his feet as if it's a huge effort to stand up in Sawyer's presence. "Ah… just remember… Tuan have message, from Tuan Hugo."

"Oh do I now? And you couldn't have told me this earlier?" The 'Tuan' business is making him want to scream and crush his forehead against the wall. Or better yet, Captain Maf'ud's long bony skull.

"No Tuan."

"So where is this beacon of light left behind for me to treasure?"

"Tuan come with Captain."

"Alrightey then… I'll come." He lumbers on behind the dry twig of a man, hoping fervently that Hurley's left a big fat dollop of dollars behind.

The Captain leads him beneath deck, his white hat squeezed under his arm. He heads the way through a narrow corridor lined presumably by the tiny staff cabins. He halts his stiff gait outside the last door to the left, hand held out in front of him like a particularly ill-mannered waiter.

"Here Tuan," he says and gesticulates for Sawyer to enter. A strange little circular movement of the wrist that reminds Sawyer of some stupid prick doing a magic trick.

"Better be worth my while Captain Hook."

The man nods and leans forward to turn the light on with an old fashioned bakelite switch just outside the door, the brass buttons on his sleeve glimmering in the neon overhead light.

"After you Tuan."

Sawyer strolls in, surveying the facilities that frankly are well below par here below deck. Well, guess that's what you get if you're proletariat. Looks like he's picked the right kind of facilities up there on the top deck. Spring mattress and all.

"Where is it?" He eyes the narrow double bunk inset in the wall. Christ, if he'd had to share it with a bunch of pimply kids he would have opted to off himself.

A sweeping sound as the door is swiftly closed and the click of a key turning in the lock of the metal door. _Fuck. _He's about as suave as the little Red Riding Hood, skipping, hopping jollily straight into the gap of the big bad wolf. _Fuck._

And against his will, he laughs. Yep, he is a big old schmuck. Certified idiot. Here he is, locked in on a ship and it is just too weird for words. Hurley ought to know, all he's got to do is to provide a pleasurable life style, good food, drink and a little company and he'd have to pry Sawyer off his boat with a crow bar. He hardly needs locking in. Can't say he's surprised when he sinks down on the lower bunk-bed and finds cellophane wrapped sandwiches and two cold bottles of beer waiting for him.

He's not hard to please. Ain't gonna' pound on that door and ask that bony bastard to let him out. Right now he's just itching with curiosity, wondering what kind of hellish plans Hurley has in store for him, and what part of this arrangement was _her_ idea. But he can sit here pondering about that with a beer bottle glued to his lips and breadcrumbs on his lap. No problem.

It's not too bad, but once his little survival kit has been consumed the restlessness begins to get to him. He can't lie still any longer, pleasant as it might be for a little while. He paces, back and forward, wearing down the linoleum floor and is quickly coming around to banging on the door. Beer has long been drunk and crumbs are a vague memory.

Fuck. What the hell is the whole point of this? It ain't as if he's about to make a runner. When he gets hold of the damn Captain it won't be pretty, that's for sure. Savoring the vision of his own fists pounding away at the sonofabitch, knowing damn well he doesn't have it in him to just beat the guy up. But he'll pick a fight, that's for sure.

And just when he thinks, it can't get much worse, he's already about to crawl out of his skin, the light is switched off. _What the hell?_

"Turn it on you fuckers!"

Knows it won't do him any good to rant and rave but, shit! What is he supposed to do in the darkness? There is nothing. Feels his way to the bunk and reclines again. Just lies there, too pissed to sleep he thinks but then, he must have slipped off anyway. The metallic sound and a narrow crack of light cast across his face rouses him. Then darkness again. But a voice. Someone shrill and angry as hell. A wild cat. Clawing, kicking at the door, screaming, banging fighting it by the sound of it.

"Open! Open, open openopenopenopen!" Frantically repeating the word, just that word. Something hugely suspect about this. Waking up to a dream. His mushy brain grappling with the sensory inputs. _Her _voice.

Kate.

Finds his way in the pitch darkness towards the voice and his arms encircling her, restraining her. Screeches like a cat, claws at him instead. Alarmed, violent and impossible to hold onto without hurting.

"No…nonono…" Her desperation scares him too. Too loud.

"Schh… calm down baby. I'm here. It's me." _Mmm_. That smell. God, it's really her. Hard bones and muscles and softness of hips and breasts through clothes. Thrashing here and there, her distressed fight to free herself. His hands snagging in her hair and she yelps. Like some frightened animal. Her nails scratching him through his shirt. And not in a good way.

"No, no, let me go!"

"Calm down for fuck's sake, it's only me."

No time to think of how improbable it is and how this is probably his overactive imagination. Trying to calm her movements takes all he's got. A second of hesitation, when the realization reaches her. The exact moment when he feels her softening in his arms, a brief pause before she pushes away from him in the darkness.

"What…? " High pitched, scared. He remembers how she hates being locked up, how the dark can freak her out. Takes pity on her. "Where… I don't understand… what are you doing here?"

She has moved away from him. Probably pressing herself against the wall or the door. His arms stretched out in front of him like Frankenstein's monster, feeling for her. God – she's here. Close enough to touch. Which makes the whole set-up even more puzzling. Left behind. She too.

"What do you think? Having the fucking time of my life." _Needs to touch._ Make sure it's not his mind fucking with him. It might very well be. But it's her. It's her and he can't breathe again. Wants to sing and dance. _It's her._ And nothing makes sense. Here in the darkness, locked into a cabin under deck. With him. Finds her, hands on what seems to be her waist and she pushes them off, away.

"You're not supposed… you shouldn't be here." Panicky, as if he frightens her, and perhaps he does. He sort of frightens himself. This crazy grappling in blindness for her, like some mindless monster.

"Oh, and where should I be then Honeypie? Cuckooed up in some other hole after you and the merry bunch have skipped town."

She's quiet at this, which makes it all the harder to find her in the dark. Darn. It's not a big cabin, shouldn't be logically possible to avoid his hands. And he needs to touch her. Wants to sniff her, feel her up, make sure she's real. The suffocating blackness of the cabin. It's too hot, hot and stuffy and he wonders if he smells like rotten sardines. Will she let him? Can he hold her? No, it doesn't seem like it the way she moves, slides by him and he fails to catch hold of her sleeve. It slips right through his fingers. Thin silky stuff. Wants to see it, touch it. Imagines the material red for some reason. Some silky slinky red shit hugging her chest.

"Hurley said you weren't coming… I didn't, expect you here…"

"Bet you didn't. But here I am" Moving quietly in the dark and he hears the shuffle of her feet against the floor, evading him. It's not a large space. He should bump into her. If she could only stand still for two seconds straight. She's like a damn snake the way she slinks through his hands.

"But…Why? Why are we locked up? I don't understand…" she says. Such a pitiful confusion he almost laughs at her. Granted, he's had a few more hours than her to digest the fact that he's been screwed over but he also has enough trust in Hurley to know that he's in no danger. There must be a purpose to all of this and it only irks him that he couldn't' see it coming, conman and all that he's supposed to be.

"How the hell should I know? We've been set up Honey, you and me both. Ain't nobody here but yours truly and a bunch of yahoos."

Lunges out against her and he feels her glide away. Quick as sin. Flittery flutter in the dark abyss. _Come here. Come here_. Wonders what it might be like, if he kisses her now. Will she fight him, talk reason or give into the sensation. Knows they are both creatures of comfort, give in far too easily to the physical. Him and her, the same. Need skin. Perhaps him a bit more than her.

"So what … they're just gone?" Defeated. Knows what she must look like and thank Jayzus it's dark and he doesn't have to see it. Sumptuous bee-stung lips and that little girl look, some kid who has been cheated out of her candy bar.

"Yep."

"No. No, Hugo said they'd be here… they'd wait for me and…" She's almost stomping her feet now. Near tears. Remembers how she hated being left behind even back then on the island. How she'd sneak along whether she was wanted or not. He'd always wanted her along. Jack didn't, always the gentleman, had wanted to protect her while he – he had just been obsessively curious, had wanted to see what she might do. He takes a seat on the lower bunk. Tired of their little game of cat and mouse. It's ridiculous.

"Sit down for Christ sake. You're making me wanna' toss my cookies."

"Oh, yeah, sure, 'sit down'. Where! It's not as if I can see anything, smart ass!"

She's near, he grips her wrist and pulls her down on the bunk next to him, her ass landing right there next to his hip. Would have gone further, would have pushed her down and had her way with her if he'd thought it'd lead anywhere beyond heartache.

"Oh."

"Missed me?" Runs his thumb across her inner wrist. Tick, tick, tick. Her heartbeat like a anxious rabbit's. How had he fallen so hard for this person? Wonders no if it was all a delusion. Something that had happened simply because he had wanted it to happen. Had wanted her to mean something – give meaning to his whole pointless existence.

"Hardly." She rips her hand away. As combatant as ever. He on the other hand can't quite decide how to be with her. Mad or forgiving. Indifferent or furious. Remorseful or flirty.

"So you were gonna' ditch me huh?" he exhales. Knows he sounds like a gruff old pig. As if her presence is bothering him. As if having her here in a dark enclosed space with him isn't a fucking wet dream.

"Didn't think you were all that eager to come."

"Bullshit. You _knew_ I was gonna' come. You didn't really think I was gonna' let you go back there on your own?"

"Yeah right! I know you were planning to go without me! Hugo told me everything. How you were planning on dumping me."

"Hah, and Hugo sure put a glitch in your plans himself, ain't that a hoot sweetheart?"

He places a hand on her thigh and to his great surprise, she doesn't toss it off. He slides it up and down, relishing in the feel of taught muscles beneath denim. She's so tense, she almost trembles. It's the darkness he guesses. Never been fond of the dark. Can't stand being locked up either. Remembers that time with the 'Others'. She hadn't weathered captivity well. Highly strung and on the brink of hysterics. How he'd struggled to lighten the mood, keep her from sinking into despair. The kiss while they'd been breaking rocks. Something in between an impulse and a calculated move. The sprouting crush he'd nurtured for her. Something so ridiculously foreign to him at the time.

"Shit."

"Yeah," he says, still can't believe she is here with him. Not real enough. "And why do you reckon we're locked up like two jailbirds?"

"No clue… What do we do now James?"

"Me, I'm gonna' catch a few winks. You're welcome to join me if you wish darling. Plenty of space here," he says and slaps the bunk behind them. Doesn't really mean it but it's easier to be flip and play that man. Better than the love-sick romantic fool he really is.

"This doesn't change anything."

"So absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder at all huh Sugarpie?"

He lies down, closest to the wall. Feels how she makes space for herself next to him. How she carefully lays herself down there, behind him. Warm and soft and silky blouse and all.

"Do you hate me?"

_Yeah_. No. Fuck if he knows.

Knows nothing, doesn't know what he wants, what she wants. Why that means a hell lot more to him than the reason for his current imprisonment.

"No."

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'? I just don't, is all."

And that's the truth. He doesn't hate her. Never did. Knows she comes from a load of crap, all that luggage, the asshole she killed, the baby, babies. How can he blame her? She didn't ask for any of it. Suddenly feels such a rush of compassion for her it takes all he's got not to try to hug her. Alright, it's for him too. Needs some comfort. Just when he was about to find his footing, was about to move on – here she is again. Exhausting to think of going through that cycle of grief again.

"Okay… but I'm not going to sleep with you." Belligerent as ever. Is she kidding? Wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole. Humiliating to have loved her as he did, only to be discarded as if what they'd had was worth nothing.

"Stay awake then."

"You know what I meant!"

"I ain't giving you an invitation to ravish me. I'm off the menu Darling. This petting zoo is closed for business. You wanna' sleep here, go ahead… You wanna' scratch an itch, I reckon you can go hollering for the fancy Captain."

"I might just do that."

Enough of chasing her, of trying to pull her in. Fuck, if she can't feel it, if he isn't worth staying for, why bother? Needs to find out which way is up, how to be with her now. Thinks of Jack. Hell, that guy had managed it with relative grace. Had lost her and had still managed to keep some kind of civil, semi-affectionate relationship with her. Why shouldn't he be able to do the same thing? They ought to be able to be in the same room without having it break out into a power struggle or a mating dance. But not like this he can't. Needs her warm soft shape away from him. He isn't strong enough, isn't healed enough. Hell, it's only been a few weeks. Needs the distance.

"You might wanna' vacate the premises too. There's another bunk on top. You can take that one."

"Oh shut up already. Move over." He shifts, moves as far in towards the wall as he can, his back turned towards her when he feels a gust of her breath against the nape of his neck. Making his dick hard and his heart pick a frightening pace. All so instant, so uncontrollably sensitive to her presence. Shit. He ought to wear an armor around her.

"Did you just… _sniff_ me?"

"No."

"Yeah you did. I felt it! You just took a big old sniff!"

"I did not!" Can't help smiling. So, he's been missed huh? Not over him. And he knows he has that effect upon her. Only. It isn't enough. It doesn't change who she is, the fact that she couldn't see it. How fucking good they could have been together.

"Hell, you almost suctioned all of my neck-hair up into your big greedy nose." _Hey, they can do this_. Can lie here talking. Staying clear of all the pitfalls, keep it light and flirty. But the question wants out, it knocks on his teeth, scratches at his tongue, screeches inside his head; _'Why can't you be more? Why isn't this ever enough?'_

"Did not." Her lips against his neck now. Her hand smoothing across his back. And oh Jayzus, her sweet breath on his skin making him bunch up his shoulders. Every cell, every nerve expectant, almost pushing against her. His throat hurts, it's so tight, he swallows hard.

"Did too." He can't help laughing at her and her childish denial. Rolls over on his back and even though he has no sight, he knows she's hanging on her elbow. She's so close. He could slip his arms around her waist and pull her down now.

"So that wasn't you trying to inhale me just now then?"

"Okay… I might have sniffed a little."

"That was a 'little'! Like a goddamn industrial strength vacuum-cleaner."

"Yeah well, it wasn't worth it. At all. You need a shower buddy."

"Hey Princess, no one asked you to suck up my goddamn skin particles."

"Oh yeah, it seems to me that you were pressing your neck against my face on purpose."

Her hand finds its way to his shoulder. She supports it there, fingers splaying, playing along the clavicle bone, just inside the collar of his shirt. He clasps his hand around them, stopping them. Brushes her away.

"Are we gonna' talk Freckles or are we gonna' be cute all night long."

"Sawyer… I'm so sorry..."

"Well that's about a day late and a dollar short girl…What the hell did you run for?" It comes out harshly as he rears all the other emotions back in. Because even if they might end up making love tonight, here in this absolute void of reality, nothing will be different this time either. Nothing won. That's the whole truth. He can see that now, how maybe it is time to let go of her. And the truth hurts, hurts like a bitch but that's just how it is.

"That's just… what I do. You knew that... right from the start." _Didn't he just?_ But it still makes no sense to him. He still doesn't get it. Her cowardice, what the hell went wrong.

"I did what I thought was for the best. I wanted you to be happy. Have a… a life."

It comes straight out of the blue. _A life?_ This, the drinking, binging, not being able to breathe without her. It's no life. No way to live. Shell shocked, he chooses to ignore it. He makes to turn his back against her again, but she places one hand on his shoulder, hard fingers digging into upper arm, preventing him from rolling over. Her face that suddenly brushes by his. Her lips dangerously close, smells of vanilla and sunshine. An abyss opening up. How she'd said she loved him. Less than a month ago in fact. Though it seems a lifetime ago now.

"James…" she says softly and a lethal kind of exhaustion just engulfs him. He's so fucking tired of this. Of running around in circles, of having to convince her. It has always been all him. Right from the start. Jack was right. She'll never pursue him. Not like that. Lets go too easily, gives up at first sign of trouble. Her faithless spinelessness. He could have been _that_ man with her. Almost was. The man that she could believe in, someone she would never have to fear, never would have had reason to doubt. Could have been a good man.

"What!"

"Nothing… I've… It's just that I can't believe you're here. I've missed you."

_Sure she has. Sure. _That's why there hasn't even been a sign of life for all this time. She doesn't know what she's doing. She can't help it. He knows she wants a moment of his skin against hers. Wants a little human warmth, lips that whisper in her ear – but after that. She can't give or take anything. Indignation burning in his throat as he remembers that last pity-fuck, that night when she'd left him behind.

She leans down over him, her mouth, puffs of her breath on his cheek and a warm little hand that follows in their way. She hangs over him and he knows where she's going with this. And fuck, he could just shift his head an inch to the side and her lips would be on his, the tip of her tongue would meet his. It would be all sweet sugary dreams but he won't_. Can't._ Doesn't stop to think about it, just wedges an arm between himself and her chest. It's a rude gesture, pushing her breasts up hard and maybe it hurts her but he can't care. She can't come close. He's not _that_ strong.

"No Kate."

"What… what do you mean 'no'?" She's humiliated. She hadn't counted on this, hadn't expected his rejection. Needs her away from him. The fucking nerve of her! Comes waltzing back in here with her 'I've missed you' and expects him to be at her feet. And he sure has a history playing the fool for her. _But no more_. Not again.

"No means no Kate," he says dismissively. Her breath tickling his skin as he turns his face away. Away from her. Pretends as if it's nothing, coughs and pushes her up and away from him. Turns around, resolute now.

Fuck her. He has died a little every day every minute without her. All of those nights, all the drinking. He has missed her as if she were part of him, something surgically removed.

"Are you back for _me_?" Her silence is answer enough. She says nothing. "That's exactly what I thought."

Still, he fumbles behind his back, finds her hand there in the darkness, behind him. Clasps it in his, drawing his thumb across her knuckles. Wants to hit her but instead he turns it inwards, hates himself for allowing her to get away with all of her crap. Lets his hand love her as she is. _Not her fault_. Not her fault he loves her either. _Shit._ His fingertips running across something. _Her ring._

"You're still wearing the damn ring?" He can't believe it. And maybe it doesn't matter that she still has it. But it does. _It does_. She sweeps her own fingers across his and quickly slides her hand out of his grip as if she's been caught doing something nasty. Probably still reeling from this new reality. The fact that he hadn't just pulled her down, hadn't welcomed her into his bed, that his lips hadn't met hers.

"And you're not."

"No. Ain't no fucking point in wearing a fake wedding band when you've been dumped, is there?"

"It just seemed safer to… you know, when I travel alone."

"It's alright Freckles," he mumbles but he doesn't know what's alright. Nothing is. "Let's just sleep."

His face so close against the wall his nose is almost touching it. Heart thumping in his chest. _She wears it_. Still wears it and he doesn't buy that thing with 'traveling alone.' Does she regret leaving him?

"Okay... I'll just sleep up there… then." Edges herself away and he exhales. Yeah, she better. Can't stand her there next to him. It's too confusing, too painful. She didn't come back for him. Isn't here to stay.

"Yeah, yeah you do that Freckles."

Hears her climbing up on top, how she rustles around with a pillow or something. A sigh and a kick with a foot against the mattress. Hell, he can't honestly say he doesn't want her in his bed. In the narrow bunk with her arms and legs around him. But wanting and doing are two different things. He's a grown man goddamn it. He has measure of impulse control. Giving in to this urge now is equivalent to throwing himself off a cliff.

"Sawyer…" Small voice. And he can feel the phantom warmth of her hand on his cheek as she speaks. _Come back here_. This is where she belongs, down here with him, preferably sprawled out all across him. Her breasts flat against his chest, the warm honey between her thighs like balm against him. His dick awakening in foolish anticipation. Reaches down to adjust it through his jeans, stirring, quickening, ever the hopeful. Always ganging up on him, pulling his heart into the whole game too. Heart and dick, unreliable rebel forces, entirely estranged from his brain. Come down. Climb on down here. _Drop all of your clothes on a pile on the floor and throw yourself on me. _

"Yeah..?" His fucking hand trembling as he yanks it up, tries to cross his arms behind his head. "What's up Sweetpea?"Hates himself for his weakness. He has to be better than this. He's done all of the work from start to finish. She's done nothing but fight him, doubt him, question him. His heart is off limits. She can't have it. Not again. Can't have any part of him.

"I… I've missed you James."

_Oh mercy. _Wants to murmur 'well _hell_, so did I Peanut', wants to dole on all that sultry rich molasses. But he knows damn well he can't go down that road. Ought to tell her to shut the fuck up. And he doesn't want to hear it. Doesn't want to feel anything. Imagines himself sinking into her. Tight friction and a furious rhythm. Just physical, just pleasure. Won't love her again. _Shut down. Shut down._ Doesn't trust himself with words so he stays quiet, lets the uncomfortable silence rule the obscurity around them. Lets the night swallow them up.

"I can't sleep." Like a kid. As if that's his responsibility, whether she sleeps or not. She's made her goddamn choice and he wasn't it.

"Ain't been more than a second since you laid your head down on that pillow." Can't help being short with her. Doesn't want her here, toying with him. Making him feel things again. Making him think of how he loved her. _Loved._ Wants to think of it in past tense because he can't go back to that place again.

She laughs at this, a little girlish flirty laughter, not her usual snorting kind. As if she's putting it on for his benefit. As if he's some anonymous kind of schmuck who doesn't know _her_. Doesn't know everything there is to know about her. As if he doesn't know what an absolute mess she is.

"Yeah I know… It's just… I can't sleep. This is too weird." He hears how she fiddles with the pillow or the sheet or something up there, how she moves, turning over in her bunk he imagines. None of his business anyways.

"Well you might have a chance if you stop babbling long enough to shut your goddamn eyes."

She's near. So near. Just a few feet above him. Sounds like she wants him. Yeah, damn it. There is no doubt about it. Her way of inviting him up, wants him to take the first step as usual. Goddamn coward. His dick twitching at the simple thought of just hoisting himself up into the bunk next to her. But as dumb as he is, as steered by his desires as he is, he knows that he won't be able to simply screw her.

Can't fuck her without falling for her all over again. It just ain't possible to put that on the menu alone. So he pulls back. Gives himself a mental cold shower. Thinks of Jack and Hurley, thinks of how smelly her feet can be when she's been wearing a closed pair of shoes a whole day. And how those feet are stubby and ugly. But hell, it hardly helps. Makes him want to run his thumb up the arches of her ugly little feet, rub circles under her soles.

"Can't believe they left…. they just took off like that."

"Yep. And apparently I'm now the big Kahuna of this old shit-bowl. If we disregard the fact that I'm currently in house arrest of course… locked up by my own fucking Captain."

"How could you not know something was up? You're a conman and all… you must have sensed something was off…"

"Oh, as if you weren't tricked down here, same as me?"

"Hey… I was thinking. You wanna'…?"

Yes, of-fucking-course he _'wanna'_. Wants to fill in the dots. Knows exactly what words he'd like to pencil in there. For a fleeting moment, he thinks that maybe, just maybe they could just have one last night after all. One last night of making love before she takes off again. He could live with that, he tells himself. A proper goodbye. Just come._ Come down here. _

No. No. _Jayzus_, what's wrong with him?

"Do I wanna' _what _Kate?" Icicles hanging off the words. Freeze her out from his heart. Go away. Not wanted here. He can't think straight but he knows this, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell she's getting near him with her damn witchcraft and her spellbinding fragrance. No. Not now.

"You wanna' go after them?" An edge to her, as if she has a whole bunch of arguments lining up behind that question mark. He smacks his palm against his forehead, and it's so loud he's sure she can't have missed it. Groaning effusively too.

"How do you suggest we do that, Sweetheart? It ain't exactly like sailing to Malibu."

"Well, if you're the boss of this ship, which I seriously doubt, then we have a crew…."

_Oh, the pimpernickle girl_. Always with a plan, always rearing to go. Pippi-frigging-Longstocking. Bet she has that fire in her eyes, the slightly pink tone to her skin as if she's just had a hell of an orgasm. Adventure –addict. Adrenaline junkie.

"A crew that finds it fit to put us in lockdown under deck!"

"Yeah whatever… and we have a captain right?"

"That cunning, deceiving old fart… when we get out I'm gonna' beat the tar out of that…"

"And we have a boat, or it would seem like we do, if we're ever let out of here."

"Hah… yeah, I guess you could say so. Though I'm not sure this old thing would make its way out of the harbor even. Seems ready to fall apart if you ask me…"

"Never mind," she brushes him off. "So we have transport and all the stuff that goes with, which means all we need is Benjamin Linus and… "

"Hey hey hey! Hold your horses there! Wind that one back girl… we're _not_ bringing that asshole along! Over my dead body!"

Doesn't like the direction in which this conversation is flowing at to the island. Ben Linus. Boat. Nope, it doesn't sit well with him at all.

"Oh… you have a better idea? Let's hear it then!"

_How about you get your annoying little ass down here. _Make up for the long draught, her long absence. His skin warm at the memory of how it was, him and her in that little pavilion at Ibu Sri's. Making love while the rain fell heavily outside. The smell of earth and promises. But that was then and this is now. She hasn't changed, nothing has changed. She's still not likely to stick around. He's still bound to have his heart crush. Can't even remember a time when she didn't rule over his happiness. Hates this, the pendulum between desire and aversion.

"Well, how about this…? We '_don't'_ go back to the fucking island! – How about that one? We try not to kill each other, float around a bit, see what old Hurley has in store for us."

"You do what you want Sawyer. I'm going regardless and I don't need you for it…it's not as if I need this old bucket either! I could walk down the dock and make an offer on any old ship, tonight even, if need be."

"You can drift through locked doors Darling? But never mind reality… No, let's not worry about nonsense like that…Let's say hypothetically, in the freckled lala-land of bunnies and unicorn, I supported this harebrained idea… how do you suggest we make old bug-eye do your bidding?"

"I'm sure he can be bought." Her one-track mind – he'd used to love that about her, when her one-track mind was directed at something pleasurable, something enjoyable. On him.

"And you've got the necessary finances for this… _how_ exactly?"

_Hah_, that ought to haul her back to earth. Unless she's spent the last few weeks robbing banks up and down the coast of Java. Which come to think is not such a far fetched notion. Juliet had told him about her file, the one the 'others' kept. That was way before he and Jules had hooked up, it had sort of just been a dinner conversation. Small talk. But he remembers everything, every little detail Jules had shared over a pot of chili con carne. Had pretended to find it funny, what a complete crackpot she'd turned out to be. Secretly feeling nothing but pity and a deep wretched affection for the scrap of a girl. His female counterpart. Someone ruined beyond repair, someone moving in the periphery of normalcy –desperately wanting to come in.

"Miles dropped off my new documents and, well… the papers for a bank account in my new name. Trust me James, I've got _enough_ money. Hurley's seen to it."

"So you're in the mullah now huh? Got a pretty penny from the big guy huh?"

"Sure did," she says in a strange, faux Southern accent. He must have rubbed off on her. But enough of this crap, he needs to find a smooth way to change the topic. Ain't no way he's letting her sail across the ocean in this thing to find that hellhole again. He might agree to it though, _for show_. Bribe every single one of these fuckers and let her chase the tail of the dog to the end of the world and back.

"So you're a rich girl now huh Sweetheart? Hope for your sake you've got a foolproof prenuptial, cause I'm damn well expecting to be kept in the lifestyle I'm accustomed to." Resorts to just teasing her. Hoping she'll get aggravated enough to stop talking about all the island- bullshit. Trying to push his way away from Ben Linuses and futile trips across the ocean.

"Which pretty much means keeping you in beer and bar peanuts for the rest of your life," she manages to say before she breaks up completely, laughing the way he remembers, the whole bed frame shaking with that unattractive little piggy laughter that he loves. Correction; '_loved'_. "Can't believe Hurley _married _us off… So, all this time, we've been happily married? Who'd have thought?"

"I don't know if 'happily' is the way I'd describe it Sugarpop." Clamping his knuckles against his mouth. No, he won't go down that road. Won't spew bitterness all over her. Wants to make peace with her. With their past. Finds to his surprise that tonight, lying here on his bunk bed, somewhere between horniness and longing – he wants to make it stop. Wants to finally move on. Four long years of this. Obsession leading him nowhere, not making her any happier either by the sound of it. Maybe she is right, perhaps he ought to be with someone else. Someone simpler, undamaged. Someone like Juliet.

"Hey… James."

_Oh no_, doesn't like the sound of that at all. The using his real name. The vague pleading, the hesitation. And still he can't help waiting for the rest, baited breath and all.

"Do you…?" Inhales in a way that makes it seem like she's trying to swallow air. "I don't like the… dark."

"Ain't nothing here Skitterbug. Just grab some sleep Kate, that's what I'm gonna' do. Ain't nothing we can do tonight anyhows."

The bunk above him squeaks, maybe she lifts her ass up, shifts heavily as if rolling over to the edge of the bed.

"Can I…Can I sleep down there… with you?" Her voice closer now. Imagines that her head leans over the side of the bed, looking down on him.

Part of him, that old Sawyer, the James of the past four years wants to whisper_; 'yes, hell yeah, get your ass down here, let me lick you all mellow and soft and tired.' _But that's not what he says. At just lets her words fall awkwardly flat on the floor. Kicking them under the carpet with his silence, saying absolutely nothing. Just waits, clearly hears her nervous breath up there, a bit surprised at her lack of sophistication.

"Sawyer…?" she whispers, as if to check if he's still there. Still awake.

"So this is fun huh?" he quips breezily, knowing damn well he ought to just have kept his mouth clamped shut. "You ditching me, me planning on ditching you - only to be ditched by you again, almost – and then you here again freaking double ditched by just about everybody. How about that? Ain't life a bitch?"

"James… is it okay if I stay down there… with you?" Nervous and uncomfortable. As if he doesn't know her better than anyone. As if they haven't been closer to each other than to anybody else. No. he thinks. No, she ain't coming down here. It won't work. Won't be worth her awkwardness tomorrow morning, how he already knows she'll avoid his eyes, shrug his giddiness off. She didn't come for him. Isn't back to stay.

"I heard you the first time Sugarpop."

"You didn't answer," she mumbles. And he knows how much this must cost her. Knows her face must be beetroot red and her eyes downcast in shame. He is a bastard, because a large part of him enjoys this, making her suffer.

"So…? Is it okay if I…?"

"No," he says so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. "That's the answer. No."

_No!_ What the…? Where the hell did that come from? Wants to dunk his head against the bed frame. But he realizes he means it. _No._ Not like this. He ain't about to go down that trail again. Sex and the illusion of intimacy and then _nothing_. He just can't do it again. Knows what would happen, after they sleep together. She'll crawl away in the morning, distance herself. As soon as that lock clicks open – she'll be off like a shot. Denying it meant anything to her. And he'd be back on the bottom of a bottle again.

_Didn't come here for him._

"Oh…" A pathetic little 'oh' – she hadn't seen that coming. "I didn't mean it like _that_. I'm sorry… it's just dark and…sorry."

Yeah. She would use him for that. Cling to him for one night in the disguise of the darkness. It changes nothing. This reaching out for him. Means nothing.

"No need to apologize Sugarpie, I'm flattered but… you're going to have to give me a hell of a lot more than that to get back into the good zone."

"Smug asshole. Who said I want to get back into your 'zone'?"

"Well that sort of answers it, doesn't it?"

"What do you want from me James?"

He pauses. Either he bullshits his way out of it or he speaks the truth. One of them ought to have the guts to. And it's dark and he doesn't have to see her. He's already been played for a fool. Nothing more to loose.

"What do I want? You know damn well what I want Kate." He gathers his strength, pushes away the voice of reason that says; '_shut up, shut the fuck up_'. "You. I want you and me. No more running! I want all of it, I want a big fat commitment, I want rings that mean a fucking thing, I want you to trust me for two red seconds straight... I want everything, the whole shebang. You here to give me that Kate?"

"I… you know I don't know how to... Can't be that for you."

"Nah. I didn't think so! And that's why the answer is _'no'_. And it's gonna' remain a no. I just can't. No more of this fucking bullshit Kate."

"You _can't_," she repeats dumbly and he can tell that she doesn't believe him. Doesn't think this is real. He's never ever said no to her before. Not like this.

"I just don't trust you further than I can spit Darling."

"_You_ don't trust _me_?"

"No girl – nope, can't say I _do_." Hadn't wanted to say it. But as much as he has longed for her all this time it's painfully clear that she's as jittery and as unreliable as ever, one foot out the door. He knows her well enough to see that for all of her plans with the boat and the island, she has no real intention at all to stay. With him. And if her only reason to remain with him is this dogged idea of returning to the island – not for _him and her_. Then to_ hell _with it_._

Thinking that he ought to have feigned sleep straight from the start. He'd have avoided all of this. Should have cut it short before things started going awry. The silence takes up too much space and he hears her coughing, a fake, uncomfortable cough.

"Wow, look at the time." She sounds hurt. Hurt and insecure. "Goodnight '_buddy_'."

"Yeah… hey, hold on Freckles."

"Yeah?" Is it him, or does she sound a little hopeful? Just a little.

"This doesn't mean I don't care about you. I just… I can't… It's too damn hard." Skinless and raw, as if he's been turned inside out. That's it. There is nothing more to say.

"I know," she whispers. "I know it is."

"Goodnight baby-chick."

"Goodnight James."

Flexes his arms behind his head. _Hep. That wadn't so hard was it? _Doesn't want her anymore. _No_ - that's a big fat lie. But he doesn't want to love her anymore. _No more. _And that's the plain truth. Maybe the realization is enough to pull himself out of this mess. Finally move on.

…

The rejection, the cold shoulder, she can't say it was unexpected or undeserved but it still makes her want to hide her face in humiliation. Never mind that he can't see her.

_What had she expected? _

That she'd be able to just come skipping in and charm her way back in, just like that. To a man who holds a grudge longer than it takes to age a good wine.

And the doubts, they pick at her, dig into her belly. What has she done? The family, that crap, she should have talked to him, should have behaved like a normal woman, a grown person – instead she'd sneaked off like a runaway kid. Pathetic. No she isn't surprised by his refusal, him brushing her off. After all, she didn't come back for him in the first place. Nothing more than a mere accident that they happen to be on the same boat anyway.

She feels stupid, so stupid.

He. Here. In the black of the night. And her lying on the top bunk still sniffing the air for his fragrance. The musk and spice of him, throwing her off. And maybe it's just because it's been so long, but her skin aches for him. She's such an idiot. Wants nothing else but to crawl down there to him. Mouth watering at the thought of tasting him, his lips, his skin. It's been so long. Can't remember why she thought she had to give him up. Why this could ever be better than being with him. But it's too late. No going back.

His 'no Kate', delivering a mortifying blow to her ego. And it's not the thing she ought to lie here and think about. Has bigger problems. Just the simple decision of what to do next. Where to go from here. So tired of running of not having a steady point, a place to belong to. And him here. The last person she'd expected running into. Listens to his deep, steady breathing beneath her. Knows he must be asleep already and she envies him, the way he slips easily into sleep while she lies here stiffly, eyes wide open seeing nothing.

…

Something is off. This is the first thought he has. He wakes up a sweaty mess. Sheets twisted and mattress bare, skin sticky and his head pounding. Nothing strange about that. He's woken up many times like this, after drinking himself to a black-out. It might just be the fact that he's locked into a cabin under deck and that it's no longer pitch black, light coming through the half open door which swings back and forward in its hinges. The bastard has unlocked it. Just wait until he gets his hands on him! But something is still different. Something in the air, in the gentle movement of the ship. _Oh fuck!_

Gets up, unsteadily, the whole cabin twisting like a funfair ride. Either he's dreaming or they are… out at sea. Glances at the top bunk and predictably it's empty. The way he feels, he might as well have dreamt that whole conversation in the dark last night. He kicks the cabin door open, makes his way through the corridor and up the steep steps, banging his feet on the way. The light painfully bright, searing his eyes as he steps out on deck. Has to shield them with his hand.

And there she is, by the railing. His heart just about makes a somersault at the view of her there, probably in as big a funk about it all as he is. Dressed in some kind of silky long sleeved shirt that reaches her to the thighs. The colour a disappointing light blue. Not that it ought to matter that it isn't red, but somehow it does. It's a let down. Her hair flaps like the wings of a large chestnut brown bird in the wind. And beyond her, just the sea, just emerald green water as far as the eyes can see. The smell of salt and ocean in the air. They're at sea.

"What the fuck…?"

She turns to look him in the eyes. That green that almost matches the ocean this morning.

"Where do you think we're going?"

It's like she's never been gone at all. Finds himself staring and has to mentally kick himself in the behind to get out of his funk. Enough of all of that. Enough of star-gazing, of dreaming. She isn't his. He isn't sure she ever was.

"I haven't got the faintest idea… I reckon I need to have a little chat with '_my_' goddamn Captain. Before we're halfway to China. So if you'd excuse me Ma'm…"

She gives him a little sad half smile. A bunch of hair blowing across her face and he reaches forward to stroke it away before he catches himself. _No._ Enough of that. Storms off, focusing all of his frustrations on _the Captain _instead_._ He sure has an axe to grind with him. What the fuck does he think he's doing!

They better be on the way back to goddamn Bali!

…

The Captain is sitting on top deck, feet up on the dashboard or what the hell you call it. He hardly looks up when Sawyer comes marching in. A younger guy, plump and happy, manning the steering wheel, gives him a little jolly salute. Two fingers against his white cap.

"So Capitan, you fucking hijacked us!"

Lips curling in a churlish smile. Yeah, he's damn satisfied with that one, sucking on it like a caramel. And he's so damn calm Sawyer looses his sting. It's all too abstract. It's like being caught in some feverish dream filled with talking saucers and smiling Cheshire cats.

"You mind telling me where the heck we're going?"

"Lombok Tuan." Captain Maf'ud stretches his arms leisurely behind his head. Yawning. Fucking rude is what it is. Has a mind to kick his goddamn teeth in.

"And what the fuck do we wanna' do in _whaddidya'_ say… Lombok?"

"Just follow orders Tuan."

"I thought you said I'm the big Kahuna here. You follow _my_ orders."

Which is a joke. Clearly he ain't in charge of anything here. Just a goddamn pawn in some freakish game of Hurley. Bet Jack had a big old finger in this too. Looking for any old way to mess with him.

"Ya Tuan," he smirks at this. "Have to pick up guests Tuan."

"What fucking _guests_!" Not at all as cool as he'd like to be. Something about this man just makes it impossible. Shit. It's possibly the same kind of effect he has on the Doc. Some kind of anti-chemistry. Yeah, captain Maf'ud had been hand picked for maximum effect, he could bet his damn life on it. Hurley's idea of a joke. Or Miles' perhaps. Maybe an attempt at revenge from the Doc.

"Your guests, Tuan." Doesn't bat an eyelid.

Yeah well, fuck it! Resigns himself to his fate. If he's got guests to pick up then so be it. No point in digging, he'll just be led around in circles anyway. He surrenders to this sleazeball and whatever fucked-up schemes he's got in mind. Slumps down on a folding chair just behind the him. Half aware of Kate coming up from behind, stopping just behind his chair. A light hand on his shoulder that he wants to shrug off. Why the fuck is she here? Why was she left behind too? It doesn't make any goddamn sense.

"Okay then Sunshine, Lombok it is then." Because it doesn't fucking matter anyway. It's not like he has a goddamn plan and if this bastard wants to collect a gang of bozos in the fucking Banana Republic, so be it. He's not even all that curious anymore. There is a sense of freedom in being so utterly helpless. So out of the loop. Nothing that happens is his responsibility. He'll just go along for the ride.

"So Popeye, master Hugo really leave anything behind per chance… or that all bullcrap too?"

The man purses his lips, a funny little mustache just in it's planning stages visible in the sharp sunlight. Hopes it grows quickly. He's looking forward to ripping the damn thing off him.

"Letter."

"Okay, okay you chatterbox." Deep breath; _patience, patience come to me_. "You don't happen to have this letter on you do ya' or you wanna' push me down in another hole for the night while digging for it?"

The sloth-like movements, reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket. Passes him a slim white envelop.

"Anything else huh?… Something else I need to know?"

Shrugs again, dedicated to the non verbal type of communication. Hauls out a second envelop. Brown paper, thick. Sawyer sort of hopes it's hard cash and not a tear drenched farewell from Jack.

Ain't about to open anything in front of that old squid so he tucks both envelops in his waistband, under his shirt and salutes the antisocial asshole before he stands up, exits backing out, almost crashing into Kate.

She hurries after him. He taps down the steps and stops by the railing. Waiting for her to catch up. He turns to gaze out over the sea. And then she's there. She sidles up next to him, just sneaking up. Close enough for her shoulder to brush by his upper arm.

"So, they conned us both?" she says softly. Hair like a bird's nest, all excited and wild eyed.

"Yep." Standoffish, wants to keep a distance between them, both emotional and physical. They stand there. Just concentrating on breathing. As if neither of them knows what they are now. What they ought to do or how they should be with each other. Only thing for certain, they are stuck in the same boat.

"Hugo told me to meet them here last evening and then… Can't believe they played us both."

They watch the waves beneath them, the light foam forming on top of the low waves. She sighs beside him and he has that image of her clinking a champagne glass with Miles, Hugo and Jack again. He can imagine how foolish she must feel now, here left behind with him. The very person she'd been running from. It might be conceited of him, but he has no doubt. As much as she might have wanted to get the kid back, she was running from _him_. From this scary freakish thing he'd been trying to embroil her in.

"Hah, yep. We're in a bit of a pickle, you and me Freckles." Surprises himself by his own tone. Even, careless, as if she were never his. As if they are just two regular friends, having a friendly chat, checking out the ocean view.

"I just can't believe it…"

"Damn. Hurley… Who would have known he had it in him, huh?"

Acutely aware of the fact that the two of them had obviously had the same plan to ditch each other. It's almost comical, come to think of it, how both of them were left behind instead. They must have planned this from the get go. Must be laughing their asses off right now. Getting the two of them together on a goddamn boat, taking off in the middle of the night so that they have no chance to get off, nowhere to run. Damn Hugo, fucking wanna-be matchmaker, what does he think he's playing at? He thinks this crap is gonna' do the trick? That they're just gonna' forget all of their differences, fall into each others arms and sail off into the cherry red sunset.

"So where do you think we're heading? What do you think he's got planned for us?" Her fingers stroking the glossy, polished railing. Don't go there, he thinks. _Keep the hands to yourself little Missy_. Reminds himself that nothing has changed. She didn't come here because she cares for him. She still decamped in the middle of the night, dumped him like garbage.

"Haven't got the faintest…" He looks away, can't stand the sight of those hands. The youthful smoothness, too young to have veins marring their surface. Wants to lift them up and kiss them, wants to rub his nose against the alabaster white skin and smell her. And the fact that he's stuck here with her, it doesn't help goddamn it! Pisses him off and he welcomes it, embraces the rise of red hot rage bubbling upwards from his belly to his throat. Hurley. What the fuck is his problem? Asshole, sticking his big friendly nose into everyone's goddamn business!

"What did he give you?" Her hands gripping the railing tightly now as if someone might come and tear her away. She looks pale in the sharp morning light. Pale and tired and sad. God. He should have been able to take care of her. He should have been able to control his big fat mouth. If only he weren't such a piss-poor excuse for a man, they might not have ended up here. Like this.

"Don't know. Ain't as if I've had time to open it yet."

"Well, do it then." That jumpy, puppyish eagerness – it gets to him every time. "Open it Sawyer. Just open it already!"

"Alright, cool your heels… I'm opening…"

Takes the big fat brown envelop first. _Oh shit. Oh shit. _Raffles through the papers, a whole bunch of them before he hurriedly thrusts the lot at her. Hah, let her deal with it. She grapples with the papers, careful not to drop any of them.

"Here, _you_ take care of it."

"_Me_? What is it Sawyer? What is this?"

"It's a _life_ Freckles. Hurley has designed a life. For _us_."

"But… what? I don't get it…"

"You deal with the white one. Looks like a girly kind of letter. _You_ read it!"

She rips it open. And he picks up his cigarettes instead. One shoe on the lower railing. Looking out over the sea. Islands now, little rocky islands, dotting the sea. No more stench, just salt and ocean and sun.

_Hurley. _The ultimate conman. He's set them up. Doesn't see what choice they have now. They both owe him. They can't _not _do what he asks, it's unthinkable – even for an ungrateful bastard like himself. Can't help smiling. Happiness. Maybe it really can be bought.

"Who's it from?" he says, looking out over the teal-blue sea, though he has a pretty good idea already.

"From both of them… or all three. There is a note from Miles too."

"What does it say?"

"Wait… Well, it says; _Don't mess it up, asswip_e_. Sunk some hard earned cash into it, so work at it Jimbo!_"

"Haha… yeah, of course. What about the others… What wise parting words do they leave us with Freckles?" Turns to look at her and can't miss the sweet coral pink of her cheeks.

"_Ah_, read it _yourself,"_ she snaps reaching up and promptly sticking it inside his open shirt collar. Stalks off with the brown envelop and all the content, feet drumming on the steps as she jogs upstairs to the upper deck.

Hurley and Jack_, sentimental fools_. Or maybe that's like the pot calling the kettle black. And it feels like shit, as if they have let their friends down. All of this, arranged, tailor-made, hand-stitched for them, and what do they do with it? They just throw it all away. _Fuck it all up._ He crumples the letter into a ball, chucks it in the sea. He doesn't want to ever lay his eyes on it again. The words, they buzz around in his brain like angry wasps, bugging him, stinging him where they can. Every word in them, reminding him of what they have lost, how much they have screwed up. How undeserving he is.

Fuck it! _He gives up._ He will go wherever the stupid boat goes. Won't fight anything anymore. Sign his worthless life over on Hurley. He can have it for what it's worth. So he turns to follow her. Takes the steps in twos. It's not too late. Crunch time. _It's do or die_.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea. Maybe the choice doesn't have to be so damn hard?

"Kate…"

She waits for him at the top of the stairs. Doesn't look at all surprised to see him there. As if she knew he'd come scuttling after her. Well, why the hell wouldn't she know? He always does.

"What do we do now Sawyer?"

"Well, here's what I think…" he sits his ass down on the top step, gesturing for her to take a pew beside him. Shakes out another cigarette. Hell, offers her one too and she takes it. "For now, we'll do as we're told."

"How do you figure that?" She clinches the cigarette between her lips as he lights it for her. Holding it awkwardly between thumb and forefinger. Not very lady like, dragging in hard on it.

"We'll this is how I reckon it could work… We'll get our ducks in a row, you and me… we'll be business partners. Put our brains to making Hurley's boat float so to speak."

"But… what about… you know. You and me?" A sideway glance at her. Her knees tightly squeezed together. A crampy grip on that cigarette and eyes on her own lap.

"You and me nothing Plumcake. We'd be partners. That's it. Easy as pie."

Looks up at him. Meeting his eyes. And there is something there. A hope of sorts, a little glimmer of anticipation. Something awakening in her. A bottom lip that slips in between her teeth. Those freckles, the round cheeks. He can learn not to see her that way. Maybe he really can.

"Okay… so partners huh?"

"Yeah, you know, since we're married and all, I reckon we can be the best dysfunctional couple slash partners this side of the equator. We'll bicker about small stuff, be a bitchy nagging family of sorts, sleep in separate quarters – I think we could ace all of that, don't you Sugar?"

"It wasn't all bad," she mutters, nostrils flaring. Hit a sore spot and why the hell should it even matter anymore? _Baby girl._ Trust him to picked the most damaged of the bunch and screw her up some more.

"No, it was mostly fucking mindblowingly good – but the end was a pretty bitter pill to swallow Shortcake. And I ain't ever being left behind like that again. So you wanna' scoot off, go ahead! You can cut and run, just skip out at the next harbour. But you wanna' give it a try… well, you know I'll take good care of you like nobody's business. I reckon I can be the greatest darn friend ever."

"Wow," she snips back. "That's quite a speech Sawyer. Did the sun fry your brain to pieces?"

"No. Never felt better. You and me on this freaking boat, that would be a hell of an acid test, wouldn't it? Just friends, no monkey business."

"Friends? Us? Seriously, do you even believe in that yourself?"

And why the hell not? Hurley can do it. Jack can and even the social misfit Miles manages it somehow. Why shouldn't they be able to? If he's learned anything the last few months down here in the tropics, it's that the fucking incredible selflessness of that friendship that Hurley offers them has it's own benefits. No demands, no judgment, well almost none. Something to strive for, something to admire. He's like fucking Gandhi and the two of them like bickering ungrateful snotty kids. No wonder they were dumped. All they've been doing is complicate things.

"Yeah well, here are the facts; I ain't got no job to go back to, I ain't got a big rowdy family or doting friends bugging me to come home. I own absolutely nothing, belong to nobody. You and those assholes who just royally screwed us over is about the nearest to a family I've got. And the way I see it, those bastards have just locked us into a fucking gilded cage and given us an all-inclusive honest to god future to boot."

"Yeah… they sure have. Wonder how long they've been planning it…"

"It doesn't matter. None of that matters. Just stay Kate. I promise you, I won't ask for more. Just that you stick around, be my business partner. Help me do this… Blank slate. You and me, no more fucking around."

She just glances at him, a little sideways, wiping away a few stray strands of her hair from her face, doubtful tightening of the mouth. He knows she's having trouble wrapping her brain around this. Suspicious, thinking it's a trick, that he's forever conning her. Probably thinks it's a novel new idea to get inside her panties.

"Friends?"

"That's right little Darling. Bosom buddies. Each to his own, or her own for that matter." He isn't all that sure himself. Not as sure as he tries to sound, but whim or no whim. It might just work for them. Hell, he loves her enough. Wants what's best for her. He also wants to screw her every which way the wind blows but that's secondary. Needs her with him. Can't think further than that. - _ Fuck the rest_.

"Buddies with our history… Well it's a bit, far-fetched."

"Is it now? Well, maybe that was our problem. A friend would never have done what you did. Just slink off in the night." Can't help taking a little dig at her because hell, it still sits wrong with him. He still doesn't understand it, her, but he won't let that screw everything else up. It all makes sense now. Hurley. Kindest fucking conman ever.

"A friend wouldn't have said what you said either."

"I know. I'm sorry… I was pissed, I didn't think. "

"I know that."

"So, you game Peanut? You wanna' give it a try? Partners."

"Oh shit… I can't believe I'm falling for this… but alright. Let's give it a shot."

A pause. This is real. They are real. And maybe, maybe she'll be sticking around more than a fortnight. The two of them, the proud owners of a honest to god adventure cruise business. Shit. They're in so deep. All the money Hurley's thrown their way, just to set them up. Can't screw this up. Can't drop the ball on this one.

…

_Thanks for reading yet another long chapter. I hoped you liked it even though it didn't exactly move in the direction I had aimed for. I had wanted the two of them to be far more cool and aloof this first encounter but they just didn't behave the way I had expected them._


	34. Another deep dive

_Thank you so much for the reviews! This story is already ridiculously long, and I am crazily flattered that anyone still reads it and that some of you even take the time to leave a comment. Thank you! Thank you! _

_Can't believe I racked up 34 chapters already... and not quite done yet._ _I hope you enjoy the mess that follows and that it isn't too confusing, too wordy, too boring. Here goes..._

_Rated M for sexual content and foul language._

_Disclaimer: not mine, none of it._

...

**Another**** deep dive**

…

_Oh crap_ - almost eight o'clock_._

She kicks the sheet aside and swings her legs off the bed. Can't be late. The polished wooden floor is cool and smooth under her bare feet. Rakes her fingers through her hair, in an attempt to make herself a little more presentable. Snatches yesterday's clothes off the foot of her bed. Would have wanted to put on a little make-up, but there is no time. Must make it to breakfast. Steps into a pair of flip-flops, wipes the corner of her eyes with her thumb, trying to eliminate any evidence of sleep. Can't look like she just rushed out of bed.

The breakfast is set up on a buffet table in the staff canteen. Fresh fruit, toast, steaming hot coffee and fried rice for who prefers. Sawyer had made sure they changed the chef as soon as they'd arrived in Lombok. It was obvious that the bloated, burping man Hurley had on from Jakarta wasn't up to anything finer than scrambled egg. He had hijacked Ni Luh, a short stout Balinese woman, head chef at one of Lombok's top resorts and they hadn't been disappointed.

She's greeted by Ni Luh who comes padding through the canteen with a thermos in one hand and a cup in the other.

"Selamat pagi, good morning Ethel! Captain, you want another cup of coffee?"

The maternal energy, something deeply comforting about the middle-aged woman. Her unquestionable self-confidence, the large bust and sturdy ankles visible beneath her sensible knee length skirt. A Balinese version of an English matron, treating them all like toddlers and getting away with it too.

Captain Maf'ud sitting alone at the table nearest the entrance, and he might as well have been carved out of wood for all the emotion he shows. Just nods, face smooth and inexpressive and Ni Luh squeezes his shoulder in passing. Kate joins him, setting down her empty cup on the table while Ni Luh refills the Captain's coffee first and then hers. The captain glancing at her fleetingly only to look down into his cup again.

"Tuan Herbert not up yet?"

"No." Obviously not and the nervous flutter in her chest makes it impossible to play disinterested. They all know, she's sure of it. How she rushes to the canteen every morning, hoping he'll be there. Hoping to have him for herself for a little while before he gets all caught up in the guests again. Her childish expectation every morning. The only meal they eat away from the guests, staff here at the mess hall and the guests in the main salon. The only time he might look at her properly. When it might even feel like he notices her, for real.

She looks up when she hears heavy steps in the wooden staircase leading down to the mess hall. The disappointment overwhelming when the two diving instructors they'd recruited in Lombok appears. Like two mismatched twins. One dark and one light. The younger one Pieter, a jovial South African, blonde hair cut like a school boy's and blown up chest to boot. A bump on his nose that gives him a slightly sinister appearance in spite of the wholesome good looks. The other one, Mario, an Australian, more reserved, not as popular with the guests but she trusts him more. Perhaps because he's nothing like Sawyer.

Damn. Every morning is the same. Sitting here, muscles tensed up in anticipation, wondering if she'll have a chance to talk to him alone. And she ought to be happy now. She's safe. She has a life. The risks of getting caught are minimal. She should be satisfied, and still this time on the ship, it's nothing but extended, long-winded torture.

He comes strutting through the canteen and her throat constricts instantly. A bounce to his stride that she hopes isn't thanks to some extracurricular nighttime activities. Not that she has anything to say about that anyway. But she could swear, he's got that post-sex sultry glow about him. He sinks down on the bench opposite her, flicking his hair out of his face and loosening up his shoulders with a little stretch.

He looks different nowadays. Laughter lines and crows' feet instead of that tight jaw and the sullen frown. No real danger hanging over their heads, relatively safe from Interpol and the police, cruising around like this. Dropping in on tiny little island that don't' have neither law enforcement, nor access to communication to the outer world. But perhaps his light-hearted, carefree existence is more thanks to her no longer being his. It proves she was right. He is better off without her.

"Morning Sunshine! Morning bozos…"

Captain Maf'ud stands up demonstratively. It's no secret those two are like chalk and cheese.

"Oh you leaving already Popeye? Gotta' get a head star huh, find another rock to park on."

He's such an asshole. The captain's recent failure to navigate a shallow bay, he's rubbing it in with gusto. It wouldn't have been completely uncalled for if the middle finger had shot up at this. But he walks away, straight backed and proud. Sawyer shimmering, glittering like the sun, pleased as punch at getting one over on him.

"Morning... you look like you've slept well." She fakes a smile. _Please say you just slept._ A bad case of bedhead. Exactly how he'd always looked, those lazy mornings in the pavilion, sheets all messed up, twisted across the mattress – his hands reaching for her.

"Just honey peachy Darling, the ocean air agrees with me..." _Yeah, she bets it does_. "You?"

Bares the rows of even teeth, that smile; a little off, a little wolfish making her toes curl. _Oh._ The only cloud on her sky. How she is completely, hopelessly head over heals infatuated with him. Apart from this, the partnership, the friend thing ought to be holding water perfectly. They are friends, somehow, he's pulled it off. And he is a surprisingly good friend. Doesn't mess with her, doesn't bug her or set her up. Doesn't do any of the things she has grown to expect from him. And she misses it. _Misses him._

"Alright…can't complain." She stays a couple of cabins down from him. Glad not to have him next door. Not that he'd worry about it but she'd rather have her nails pulled out with a pair of tweezers than have to listen to his cot squeaking every damn night. Which she's pretty sure it does from the absolute look of sexual satisfaction he sports on a regular basis.

"You seem to be getting along fine with the ladies Boss…" Pieter leering at her where he sits next to Sawyer, glossy fringe parted in the middle like a grown Christopher Robin. That stupid frat house talk. The only lady at the table but obviously not considered one.

"Well you know what they say; foot loose and fancy-free."

It makes her push her plate away. Her appetite sprinting away from the table.

"So who was it last night?" Isn't sure whether she wants to hug or smother Pieter for asking the exact question scratching on her tongue.

"A gentleman never kiss and tells." So there is something to tell. She wasn't off about the damn glow. It makes her want to claw her eyes out. Picturing him with someone else.

"Gonna' tag along on the morning dive man?" Pieter is far too eager to get on Sawyer's good side, gain access to his little guy's club. Pathetic how they all flock around him. Probably hoping some of _that_ will rub off on them.

"Sure." Swivels his head towards her now. _Oh_, now she's visible all of a sudden. Always like this, flaying in the dark until he sees he. Only alive under the light of his eyes. "Wanna' come too Freckles? Ain't that your thing, barnacles under the toes and a spear gun in high grip? You'd fit in like a fish in water…"

"No, no, I'll stay and keep the Germans company."

"That's right girl, keep those wild kids out of trouble will ya'?"

"I'll do my best."

They pass her off as his cousin. It had started out as a joke but it's not all that funny now. Would have preferred the estranged wife story she'd initially put on the table, seeing as she and old Herbie James share a last name. He'd shot that idea down swiftly, saying he wouldn't want to add unnecessary tension that the guests might pick up on. Who wants to cruise around with two exes who are barely able to be civil to each other? So cousin it is and she hates it. Hates all about it. How he throws himself into the role and how damn well he does it. _Never slipping. _ She understands it now, his success as a conman, how effortlessly he puts on a persona. Also, she guesses, the cousin thing does have the added benefit of not hampering his style with the ladies. And he's sure making the best of it.

Both Pieter and Mario get up, Pieter with a macho-man buddy slap on Sawyer's shoulder.

"See you later then bro'."

"Sure."

He spreads a thick layer of marmalade on his toast, licking his fingers clean one by one, producing disgustingly slick wet sounds that inevitably rouses something within. A memory of him peeking up at her, chin heavy on her stomach.

"You looking a little under the weather Pumpkin…everything alright?"

_Under the weather?_ She is screwed. Royally fucked is what she is.

"Yeah, great. It's the sea. I've never had a stomach for it…"

_She is an idiot_. It's the off limit thing, makes him irresistible. It's such a stale old platitude – the wanting what you can't have. His dish withdrawn from the menu and now, it's the only thing she wants. The fact that they are no more, that he isn't even interested any longer, only makes it worse. That queasy feeling of having squandered her wealth, fumbled him away. _Just like that_. Determined to hang on to this last vestiges of a relationship with him. This phony cousin slash friendship thing. But aw crap, if only he looked a little less on the top of the world.

"The sea is _still_ Honeybug...ain't a wave this side of the equator. Maybe we should get you to see a Doc…?"

'_A shrink maybe'_, she thinks. And it's crazy, how she can sit here every morning and ogle his hands. That thing he does when he licks them off. Makes it hard to swallow.

"Hey Freckles… you seem a little long in the face. You sure you're okay? Sea legs acting up?"

No. She isn't okay. Not even a little. Would be better if he were a complete asshole. She could handle that. But this, the buddy-buddyness, his kindness, the considerate tone he uses most of the time, even when he teases her. Can't stand it.

"How do you think they are doing?" She tries to ignore how he does away with a smudge of butter from his bottom lip using the tip of his tongue. Almost bubblegum pink and _crap. _Does he have to do that in front of her? That mouth, the little pointed way he has of keeping his upper lip. An invitation, as if made to have her nip at it. Hasn't shaved yet either. The stubble mocking her, glimmering in the morning light. And she can almost hear the rasping sound of her fingertips drawn across his chin. Can almost feel how it chafes her skin. Not _hers_ to touch anymore.

And she could have been happy if it weren't for this. For how damn perfect he looks every morning sitting there across from her. His shaggy hair sticking out at the sides of his head. That lazy, sensual drawl fondling every vowel in his mouth. And the dimples. Always the stupid dimples.

"They'll be fine Sugartop. They'll be back before you know it. With Mamacita and the little spud in tow. Trust me. All we gotta' do is hang tight."

Wishes she could share his optimism. Feels only half alive. Like everything is passing her by, and she's just watching it flow.

Sometimes she fantasizes about ditching the whole business, withdraw a bunch of money from the account and go after Ben. Follow them to the island. But she knows it's just a rebellious daydream. Hurley has sunk an obscene amount of money into setting it all up. And if she leaves the business, Sawyer looses it -or vice versa. A fool proof, done deal. Designed to tie them together.

The one and only condition Hurley has stipulated. Henry is to contact them, call them on the satellite phone every now and then to make sure they're still hanging in there. And watching Sawyer like this. As if in his true element, relaxed, uncomplicated, happy. How could she take that from him? Does her best to fight her nature, her weakness – the restlessness. Stuck in this mess. _And what a beautiful mess it is,_ she thinks as she watches him bend his head down over his coffee cup. That look he gives her across the table, enough to melt an iceberg.

…

The nights in the tropics, bobbing around in the magical Flores Sea. They're up on the main deck. Grilled marlin being served, chili and lime sauce accompanied by a lightly chilled Chardonnay. The sky a cupola of little glittering stars above them. The breeze balmy and salty.

She watches Sawyer's broad tanned neck, visible now courtesy of the recent haircut one of the skippers gave him. She would have wanted to do it, but he hadn't asked. It's different now. He's doesn't belong to her anymore. So she watches him, tries not to notice how the washed-out blue cotton shirt moves when he lifts his glass in a cheer towards the guests at his table. Tries not to see the golden brown of his wrists where they emerge out of the rolled up sleeves or how he weighs his chair lazily, dangerously close to tipping backwards.

He's busy, doesn't look at her all through dinner. Busy putting the big old charm offensive on the two Danish sisters they'd picked up in Lombok together with the rest of the guests. An adventure trip sponsored by their media magnate father, diving and cruising around the Indonesian island for three weeks.

The three weeks couldn't pass fast enough for Kate. Jealousy, not a sentiment she deals well with. And it's stupid. They've had their little clashes, tension running high but no one can say he hasn't made a valiant effort to be a good friend to her. She hardly has the right to sulk.

His laughter, throaty, naughty. Not for her. The agony of having to sit through these dinners. If she'd had her way, she'd be eating rice with the staff down at the canteen. But this is a part of the job, she gets that. Just wishes he didn't enjoy it so damn much.

Tries to concentrate on the friendly German couple at her own table, Mr. and Mrs. Mueller. He's a financial tycoon of sorts, legend has it he owns half of Germany. She doesn't know, doesn't care. Tries to make it through the dinner and another diving anecdote of his. She also has an Australian gentleman at her table, Mr. Purfitt and his brand new wife, Erin. It's a honeymoon of sorts, her first and his fifth. He's a little thick around the waist, wealthy and handsome in a sort of burned-out way. Doesn't handle the sun very well but is dead set on learning how to dive. Flirts with Kate behind his wife's back while the wife makes unabashed eyes at Sawyer.

Henry is overseeing the hotel on Bali for Hurley, but this, the Phinisi ship which is paradoxically named 'Merdeka'; freedom, is supposed to be their way to make themselves useful. It's payback time, a little golden cage. They've been given Hurley's little nest egg to watch over, to make flourish while he's away. And it's costing her. Every damned second of the day, the green-eyed monster a permanent fixture, sitting comfortably on her shoulder. All of the time.

Observes him, listening with half an ear to Mrs. Mueller's tale of how she and Mr. Mueller went diving in the Maldives last year and petted a real life shark. She swivels her wine around in her glass. Holding it carelessly by the stem. As if it were nothing to it. As if having to watch him like this, night after night doesn't just kill her. The longing, a constant churning in her belly. The slight touch of nausea that never leaves her.

And aw shit… Shit! How he pulls out all stops with the Danish blondes. Filling their glasses, listening to their coquettish chirping, indulges in the flirtation. _Oh_, and he's got this down. The smile, seductive and sensual, the lip biting. How he animates his face, he has so much practice with this. It's what he does. Eyes sweltering come-hither, mischievous – promising all sorts of fun. Not for her but no matter how you slice it, he looks good enough to eat and it seems she's not the only one with an appetite tonight. The other women on upper deck, predatory, competition at a blood-toothed level. Hoping he'll pick them. He's sure an asset for Hurley's business, the female guests falling over themselves to catch his attention and the men tolerating him for his fake joviality, the male chumminess.

"You ain't going to bed without a night-cap."

_Oh just ask her back to your damn cabin already. _Can't stand it.

Britt, the younger one of the Danes and her simpering laughter. Enough to make her want to chew her arm off. _No._ This won't do. He's kept up his end of the bargain perfectly. He's good to her. In a distant, brotherly way. The kind of detached politeness she would have never thought possible between them and that she is rapidly growing to hate. But this was what she'd wanted for him. Wasn't it? What she asked for. For him to have his own life. Not to be dragged down by her.

"Sure, I'll have one… maybe two, if Lotte can join us too."

_Oh_, that ugly, ugly accent. The braying like a donkey when she laughs. She has her hair in blonde pigtails like some perverted school girl set-up. The hair-do clashes jarringly with the ample chest eternally on display in a tiny shock-pink bikini. The girl must have a thousand pink bikinis. She guesses she can be grateful for the sarong tied across her hips, even if it's showing off her left leg all the way up to the thigh. Dinners in only bikini pants and top are not unheard of. And she already has a hard time getting her food down, doesn't need to watch all that tall leggy blondness – definitely doesn't need to watch him drooling over it all.

No. She makes herself sick sitting here obsessing about them. And she has no right. The Danish girls are perfectly nice people. Nothing wrong with them. Except, they are with him. All of the time.

He makes no secret of his appreciation for the sisters, though which one is his favorite is anyone's bet. He throws her a conspiratorial wink as he stands up to draw out the chair for Lotte, the older sister. The old fashioned good manners, belying the brutal coldness it must take to make all of those women fall in love with him only to screw them over. She has Cassie's story in vivid memory. He's just so agonizingly good at this; pulling you in with his finely tuned games, making you feel special. _She knows_. She's been on the receiving end of that ruthless allure. The way he shows off his dimples to all and sundry. She wonders if he's slept with any of them yet. _Both of them?_

No. It's none of her business.

It's like a high school crush. Worse, because she isn't fifteen anymore and even at that tender age, she never was the stupid girl who'd hanker after the jock. She slinks off to her cabin, and is startled when she finds him sauntering on behind her. Probably on his way to pick up some girly drink to ply the Danes with. Sidles up next to her. Walking leisurely while she hurries to get away. His long legs easily keeping up with hers.

"Off to bed already?"

"You seem very chummy with the guests." She could have bitten her tongue. Doesn't want to be that woman. The bitter bitch, the sore looser. She gave him up, she's got to live with that.

"I aim to please." He licks his lips, head tilted when he smiles at her. Probably keeps it going on autopilot. Still it makes her blush, she isn't used to being the target of it anymore.

"Yeah, I can see that."

He drapes an arm across her shoulder in a brotherly way that has her grinding her teeth. _Heavenly heaviness_. Wants to bury her nose in his shirt. It was so long ago, too long ago. The musky smell of him mixing with soap, as if he's just had a shower before dinner. A vision of him, soapsuds gliding down his chest, his abdomen. _Crap._ No. She shrugs his arm off and he pretends not to notice, lets it slip down around her waist instead. Giving her a little aggravating tickle in the side.

"So who put your nose out of joint?" He doesn't say it unkindly. As if she deserves his pity. "Ain't we having fun Freckles?"

"Sure. Buckets of it." Tries to pry his hand off her waist, but he's like a leech. Oh, and what if…? She could drag him with her. Could tell him how she feels. _Made a mistake._

"Ain't no need to be jealous. You're still my favorite girl." _Hardly._ His voice changes a little when he lets the banter fall away. "I reckon we're doing alright… ain't we Sweetpea?"

"Sure. This arrangement is working out perfectly." For _him_, she thinks.

His hip solid against her. What has she done? All of him, every blond honeyed part that could have been hers. It wasn't so long ago when she could take him, any time she felt like it. And now, he treats her the way you might treat your favorite niece. Appropriate and strangely respectful. The flirting; friendly and playful. She isn't even entitled to be pissed at him, hasn't got enough of a reason to.

"Don't worry little Darling. I haven't forgotten about you" Back to being all sassy and cheeky and releases his grip on her. Ruffles her hair in a superbly annoying way. He's handling this friendship thing a whole lot better than she is. "It ain't nothing, just being a good host is all."

"Right."

Frumpy and resentful. Left standing there as he breezes past her. How things have changed. Completely turned upside down.

…

He stands next to a pile of diving gear. Pieter is sorting through everything, checking the equipment. The early morning sun stroking his neck, his arms. It's just him and Pieter, waiting for the diving party to begin. The sea is a shimmering mosaic of turquoise and sapphire. The sky a crisp ice blue. Like Eden, that's how he thinks of it. Eden if Eden had been the sea. Perfection, and he thanks Hurley every freaking day for this. For giving him this little piece of heaven. God knows, he's done nothing in his long rotten life to deserve this. Still, here he is, living like prince.

Ni Luh comes waddling by, like a sweet little hen-chicken.

"Morning Mr. Herbert. I saved you some bacon, but you have to come soon before those wolves finish everything."

Still cannot get used to the stupid name. Like someone's pervy, embarrassing uncle. _Damn Hurley_.

"Sure thing Ma'm. Be there in a jiffy."

"Miss Ethel waiting for you. As usual."

Oh, is she now? As usual huh? Absurd how it makes his heart swell. Priceless. Watches Ni Luh's little round figure toddle on in the direction of the mess hall.

"So, you joining the dive today Herb? Should be a great little reef here. Plenty of sharks."

He had planned on it, really had. Figures he'll stick around instead, get in her hair for a change. Misses her, in more ways than one.

"Nah, gonna' sit this one out buddy." Checks the sea for dolphins. Sometimes you can see them hang around the ship. Jumping and cavorting around like badly behaved kids at a public swimming pool. Loves those damn dolphins, like being at Sea World every single day.

"So man… what's the story with Ethel… Ettie?"

_None of your fucking business pinhead_, he thinks. Pissed to have his thoughts interrupted.

"No story."

Offers the guy a cigarette, just to keep him from talking. The only thing worse than his name is hers. He'll never be able to reconcile her beauty with that butt-ugly name. On the other hand, only a girl like her could carry it off.

"Cheers, but I don't do that. Gotta' respect the body you know." Pieter taps his chest, as if to indicate what a wholesome piece of work he is. Sawyer immediately writes him off as a potential buddy. That 'my body is my temple' new-age shit, he's got no patience with it.

Pieter bends down to check the vent of the tube or something, Sawyer has no clue. Looks down at the other man's wheat blond hair falling forward, noticing a thinning spot at the crown of his skull. _Hah_, the guy can't be a day over thirty.

"But man, does she have a smoking hot ass or what, hey?"

Wants to kick the snot-nosed little creep in the gut. Not because it isn't true but he's got no business ogling her ass.

"Hey buddy-boy, hate to rain on your parade but that's my cousin you're talking about."

Pieter stands up, wiping his hands on his shorts.

"Yeah right… sorry. I didn't mean any harm with it. She's just a looker, that's all."

"Yeah well, back off Romeo. She's engaged so I wouldn't mess with her if I were you." Has to hold back. Wants to tell the pervert to take a long walk off a short pier. Wants to do a lot more.

"Oh…it's just, I didn't see a ring… Well, lucky guy I guess..."

"Hah, that poor sonofabitch, some hot-shot spinal surgeon. She'll make mince meat of him."

"Doesn't seem the type."

"Don't be fooled by the freckles and the puppy eyes… she's a goddamn piranha. Be glad she's spoken for, smoking hot ass and all."

"So, a doctor hey? How come they always fall for that MD behind a name?"

"Fuck knows, got me beat too. And buddy," he throws over his shoulder as he makes to leave. "Lay off her ass alright!"

…

Has her on his radar all of the time, never lets on that he's paying attention. A little red dot blinking, calling for him. But that's just how it has to be now. All part if it. She sits with the woody Germans and the newlyweds, probably suffering through yet another pointless diving tale. He can't help pitying her, she's such a miserable amateur at hiding her emotions. Her hungry eyes boring into his back. All of the time.

The way she mopes around, glum - almost invisible as if she's thrown in the towel. Retired. It touches him, yanks at the heart strings in an unwelcome way.

"Hey Herbie..." The blonde's hand on his arm startles him.

"Yes Honey, want some more wine?"

She leans against him, her breasts in that flimsy bikini top brushing by his arm. And hell, he's just a man. It still turns him right on. No. that's not what he's doing here. Not part of the plan. In fact, it would just wipe the whole damn thing out.

"I thought maybe we could take it somewhere else..." Her accent bugs him. Her perfume too. Heavy and cloying. But he's got this down to a pat. Can make any woman feel desired and special. No biggie. It's hardly rocket science.

"See, I would, if I weren't the perfect gentleman. Ain't nice to ditch your sister."

"You're no gentleman." Stroking his arm, up and down. _No he isn't._ He's a swine, just good at hiding it, though he never fooled _her_. She'd liked him alright in spite of it. Had said she 'loved him'.

"That's right. But I ain't dipping my pen in the company Darling, nice as that might be."

_Kate._ She waits for him at breakfast. _'As usual'_, Ni Luh's words, not his imagination, which he takes to mean, every day. It makes him smile to himself. Can't help it, how the corners of his mouth creep up. Can feel her eyes burning on his skin, following the progression of the Danish girl's roaming hand. Guarding him as if he were her hatchling. Something about it warms him, comforts him. There might still be hope for them, a tiny speck of it, he's just got to steer this ship right. Stay away from the temptation of an easy lay with a faceless blonde.

He wonders how long they can do this, the game he's playing. How long he can keep it up. And he hadn't quite anticipated this, how she is splintering before his very eyes, little fine cobweb cracks beginning to appear. Not what he wanted. Though none of this shit is. What he wants is simple enough, her and him, no need for games. Wants her in his bed every fucking night, wants her big-teethed asinine smile. Wants that spark back, the crackling, fizzing energy. Pippi Longstocking on an adrenaline high. Not like this. Wilting wallflower.

…

Another night of feeling like a reject. It's so easy for him. _Him and her_. Two blonde heads, too close together. They hardly know each other and still they are visibly delighting in each other's company. Laughing, touching, everything so easy. Not like with her.

How do they do it – all those other women? Would be fascinating to watch if it didn't tear her innards into shreds. Why can't she be like that? As if they speak a foreign language, come from a different planet. The ability to expect that people will like you, that you can be loved just because you are just such a goddamn nice person. So alien to her.

Maybe she just wasn't born with it. Maybe it runs deeper than a screwed up life and a mother who just doesn't have it in her to love her child. Her hunger. Her longing to be seen, her fear of being noticed at the same time. Her worthlessness. As if she gives off a signal, transmitted from within her. Some wavelength she was born on.

So how could she ever hope to be anything different? It's not something she can just discard, can drop like a dirty piece of clothing. The filth etched into her skin, her nerves, her muscles; tattooed. Ink made from guilt and shame.

The jealousy. It's not even all about him, she envies the girls too. Envies them for who they are, how easy it seems for them.

She observes them now, sitting there clicking her fingernails against her glass. Can't tear her eyes away. All intimate and private, the way they sit huddled over there. She's stuck with the Purfitts and the Muellers all evening and after they bid her goodnight, she remains there at her table with the two diving instructors, Mario and Pieter. Has another beer with them. Just an excuse to stay where she is, keep and eye on him. God knows, it doesn't matter whether she stays or goes. It isn't as if it's going to fetter his style in any manner. The giggling from the girl, his deep voice, flowing like melted brown sugar through the air. Not for her anymore.

Pieter moving his chair closer to her. Too close. His arms, muscular and tanned, light downy hair, just like Sawyer. But nothing like him. A spring chicken. Young and cocky and too fond of himself.

"Cheers boss-lady." Clinks his bottle into hers though she doesn't even bother lifting it up. Snide sarcastic smile. Thinks he's really something. He touches her and she'll break that bad-boy's nose right off.

"Cheers Pieter," she mumbles. Backing her chair away a few inches. _Back off. _Mostly she's just annoyed he's there. Not Sawyer.

"Hey, it true, Herb told me you were spoken for. I just wanted to check with the source so to say." Adding as an afterthought." You're hot ..."

"_Herb _told you I was spoken for!" Can't even play it cool. It just digs right in, sharp and dirty. _What's his problem? _The grubby little world he comes from. This is what he does. Manipulates and lies.

"Yeah, said to lay off the _lil' Cuz'_ since you're engaged to some _poor sonofabitch_ back home. His words not mine. Was just wondering, since you're not wearing a ring…"

Trust Sawyer to sprout all sort of crap. The selfish asshole!

"Yeah, I keep it in a vault buddy," she says dryly, acid creeping up through her throat. _Bastard._ So he's having a ball here on the boat, at the same time making sure she isn't. Is only half aware of what she's doing. Setting her beer down on the table and walks up to them. Too painful. She only knows it has to stop. She can't watch him like this any more.

"What can I do you for Freckles?" His arm nonchalantly thrown on the top of the railing behind the blonde's back. Looks like he's embracing her. Has a vivid flash of him and Juliet. He does have a thing for blondes. She halts there. Fidgeting with her hands at her sides, picking at the side-seams of her jeans. Can't remember why she barged in on them.

They look cozy, like they have something good going. He's got that glint in his eyes. Murky jealousy growing large and black as she notes that he has shaved. Knows that she shouldn't but her gaze falls on his hands. _Yep._ Freshly manicured to perfection. Ready for a night of romance, no doubt. Only, not with her.

And who could blame him? The air warm, the wind caressing skin making you think of a sensual lover.

"Hey, did you want something?" he says without turning his head towards her.

"Yeah." She stares at him and to her big surprise, he tears his eyes off the blonde for two seconds, they hitch on her instead. Like glue, something sticky, stretching between them. "You."

Turns and flees. _Shit_. She's such a dork. Suck a pathetic little girl. Feels like crying. _'You?' _Where did that come from? Not what she'd wanted to say. Not at all. The soft thump of heavy shoes against the wooden deck behind her.

"What the _fuck_ was that about?"

Catches hold of her by the shoulder and forces her around and she doesn't stop to reflect on it. Doesn't know if she takes the first step forward or if he does, but she falls onto him, they're sucked together as if there is a vacuum between them that has to be filled, chest against chest. His arms comes around her, and hers hang by her side. Too caught off guard by the rough and tumble of him. The gruff _'mmmm'_ in his throat, his palms smoothing down her ass, pressing her hips against him. Greedy making her stumble backwards against the wall, hitting her head on it a little. His hands come up, and he rubs the back of her skull, mumbling something that sounds like '_Poor baby…poor baby girl._' Infuriating, stirring at the same time. His mouth against her ear. Huffing and puffing. Friendship. Thrown out the window. She doesn't know, knows nothing. But this. His chest expanding and deflating against her. She angles her face upwards, searching for his lips. But he turns his head, buries his nose in her hair.

"We ain't doing this Kate." His voice muffled, his breath like a hot little gust against her. He lets go so abruptly, takes a step or two backwards making her loose her footing a little. Must have been on the tips of her toes.

"What's your problem!" Stupid, stupid, thinking he might kiss her. Thinking it might be that easy. He backs off further and she finds herself missing the warmth of him. And maybe she ought to leap on him. Take him by the hand, drag him with her to her cabin.

"What!"

"That engagement-bullshit you're spreading out. While you're pulling out all the stops with the Danes!" Must feel good not to care.

"It ain't nothing, just a song and dance Peanut, you know that. That's what I do. Make people feel special."

"Yeah, I bet you make her feel _real_ special Sawyer."

"Well shot me! I'm _really_ trying here Freckles."

"Well don't try so hard. It's… I can't watch it."

"I'm still here ain't I?" Squeezed out between clinched teeth. Jaw jutting and eyes like two slits. As if it's painful being here with her. A sacrifice.

"I hate you."

"No. Ain't nobody hating anybody here…"

Just like that. Stomps off, his shoes heavy against the deck now. Pissed. She can see it in the slope of his shoulders when he drives his hands down into his jean pockets. That cowboy walk he's got, swaggering. Aware of her looking, for sure. It's all for show.

…

They dock in the shallow waters outside a little island. An emerald garden emerging out of the turquoise waters of the Flores Sea. Ironic that they should search out these kind of places now. Uninhabited little paradise island. His eyes skim her face before he descends into the dinghy, bringing the first group of guests to land. Ni Luh has prepared lunch and they set up folding tables in the shade of the palms by the seafront. Crab and giant shrimps, grilled over an open fire. She makes sure everyone's got a plate and a drink. The lunch drags on. They put out blankets in the shade in case someone's up for a nap. She's just helping Ni Luh put the left over food away into the coolers.

"You okay?" Ni Luh asks, bending down to stuff the last items into the cooler box.

"Yeah, just hot. Wouldn't mind taking a break… Not in the mind to chat with the Muellers right now."

"Go then! Go ahead. I'll keep an eye on them. Go explore a bit. No komodo dragons on this island."

"You sure I can go?"

"You're the boss."

She has him in the periphery of her vision. Always. Stretched out in the shadow of the trees, those long limbs, eyes squinting, a smug smirk on his face. Legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded behind his head. The shirt, carelessly buttoned, falling apart across his stomach. A little patch of maple syrup skin visible, enough to make her salivate. Danish girls not far off of course, lying there in their designer sunglasses. Bikini tops barely on and sarongs flared open around long lithe legs, laughing, twittering to each other in their own peculiar language.

Screw it. She needs a break from it. Plucks a small water bottle from the cooler and sets off towards the tree line. A profound sense of dejavu as she makes her way through the dense vegetation. Can breathe once she has left them behind. Stalks on and the brilliant greens around her seem to swallow her up. She's glad she opted to wear her trekking boots.

A crunching of twigs behind her, heavy and clumsy, leaves and branches brushing by someone large. And she feels his presence acutely.

"Hey, just like in the good ol' days huh? Ain't you gonna' chuck a stone or something at me?"

And there he is, emerging through the dense foliage. He's got that grin, the one she knows so well. It's been a while since he's bothered using it on her. It makes her suspicious. What does he think he's up to, tagging along as if she'd invited him?

"Why are you following me?"

"Thought you might want some company... I missed you at breakfast, sorry about that. I over slept."

"Late night huh?"

"Yeah, you know it girl."

"Who kept you up this time? Senior or junior?"

"It ain't like that and you know it."

"Isn't it?"

"Nope."

"So are you trying to convince me you haven't slept with anyone of them?"

"Nope. Not that it's any of your concern but this man takes care of his needs solo nowadays."

"Yeah right! As if I'm supposed to believe that. You're not getting any? _You_?"

Holds his hands up in mock defense, a thoroughly innocent raise of the eyebrows.

"Can you see the calluses?"

"You're disgusting," she says, giving his hands a hasty glance at which he leers. Sees right through her, how she instantly pictures him, in action.

"Just telling it as it is. Why...? You wanna' do something about it Darling?"

And there it is. _Jerk._ Falling back into that old role, the insincerity of his little dig. If he only knew how much she'd like to do something about it. Maybe. She'd obtain an equal amount of satisfaction from sticking a knife in him right about now.

"Let's go girl. Let's explore," he says, effectively diffusing the situation. She makes a face at him and glides forward. "For old times' sake huh?"

"Come along then big guy, see if you can keep up!"

Tries to shake him off on purpose, knows he's having trouble navigating the terrain. He's far more clumsy than she, slips on his ass on the muddy ground more than once. And there, in the middle of the jungle, they almost trip into a creek. The water clear as glass, filtered by black rounded rocks. She squeals at the sight, the slight slope where the water moves forward and the reservoir beneath.

"You thinking what I'm thinking girl?"

"Maybe…"

"Last in is a jellyfish!"

She fights with her shirt, thrashing around, kicking to get her boots off at the same time. Can't get undressed fast enough. _Off, off._ Tussles with her jeans, the fabric sticking to her skin like rubber. Doesn't care about anything right now. Not that her bra is a pathetic, saggy skin-colored old thing or that her gray cotton boy shorts are androgynous and unappealing. Just the green water, waiting for her.

"_Mmmm_... Aren't you plumping out in the most lusty way?" He's paused in the middle of undressing, shirt half way off his arms, staring at her. The heat of his glare on her, loitering, sweeping up and down her. She turns her back on him and his intrusive eyes.

"Smooth Sawyer. Real smooth."

"Suits you Freckles. You fill out real nice. Like a ripe peach."

"Shut up." Throws herself headlong into the reservoir, feeling more like a bloated beach ball than a 'ripe peach'. Cool water enveloping her, embracing, licking her skin. Easing the humiliation of the past few weeks. He's not far behind her, dressed in a sort of tight black boxers, unlike the ones he used to favor. The heat washing over her at the sight. Perfection. His coarse lines, cut carelessly with a blunt knife.

The regret, sour grapes in her mouth. Hadn't seen this coming, how he has moved on, just like that. How he's clearly doing fine without her. He plows through the shallow bit. Legs wide apart, that crooked way of moving as if he's ailing from some invisible injury. He comes flaying ungracefully, bumbling into the water like an enthusiastic Labrador. All sleek golden hair and skin, dipping his head under the surface as he takes a few strokes towards her. Breaks the water too close and they come to a grinding halt like that, right in front of one another.

He clears his throat but says nothing, his eyes trawling her neck and shoulders and up to her face again, lingering at her mouth.

Her hands by her sides, moving slightly to keep from sinking, treading water on the spot. Accidentally brushes by his fingers and he hooks them around her wrist. A hard tug to bring her in. How he coaxes her in closer, his nose wet and cold against her cheekbone. Angling his face so that his lashes tickle her skin. Shifts a little, hands reaching for her waist, to help keep her up and she braces herself by holding onto his shoulders, feeling the muscles playing under the skin. His heat mixing with the chill of the water.

And his lips against her skin, her cheek. Swears, she can feel the tip of his tongue darting out, savoring her.

"Mmm, you even _taste_ like a peach."

She dares lacing her fingers together behind his neck. Wants to slant her face towards him, find his lips. And she tries, she sure does but he's only toying with her. Avoids her, elusive and flighty like a dream. Dipping down, burying his face against her neck. Mouth hot, like rubbing chili against her skin. It's all just a game. Fingers sliding, gliding, exploring. They could be so good together. _They were. _Wants to tell him to stop playing. Wants to raise her white flag, tell him he was right all along. _They could be good_.

"Hey…" Caresses her sides in a way that has her tensing up. "You sure seem a little chunkier Freckles."

"Oh shut up," she mumbles as his hands take charge of her, the movement of water against her skin. How he spreads his hands wide and smoothens them up her torso, stopping just beneath her bra, lifting her breasts upwards, thumbs meeting in the middle of her chest. Aggressive and gentle at the same time.

"Hey… I ain't saying it's bad. The boobs… you pack it on real nice girl."

"Just shut the fuck up." Tries to reach forward, tries to kiss him, but he seems mesmerized by the sight of her. His head thrown backwards so that he can look at her. Hands coasting up and down her waist, across her midriff. Leans back a little more to take her in properly. Palms covering her stomach, fingers sprawling. Lips parted, astonished. His eyes flickering back and forward between her belly and face. A flash of something. An abrupt realization elbowing its way forward. Stomping in uninvited.

"Shit Freckles. You ain't knocked up are you?" He startles her. Peering down the clear water, the wrinkle between his eyes deepens.

"You're such an ass!" Grips his shoulders to wedge a space between them. _Jerk. _He's all wide-eyed, brows drawn up.

"Well how can you be so damn sure? All plump and juicy, belly padding out. And what… it's been like three or four months give or take since… you know, back in Bali? That'd fit about right huh?" he babbles like someone insane his hands fondling her stomach as if to prove a point.

Thrusts him away hard, only earning herself a stroppy smile.

"I'm not! You think this is a joke?" She backs away from him. Fear gripping her by the throat and putting the squeeze on as his words sink their hooks into her. Makes her way up, out from the water. Away from him. Should have known better than to let him near.

"Hey Freckles!"

Swirls around to look at him against her better judgment.

"Fuck off Sawyer," she whispers, her stomach churning, twisting. He's a mean son of a bitch. Can't believe she never learns.

"Girl, you're practically glowing." His head bobbing just at the surface, mouth open, letting water in, expelling it like a little fountain. He's such a kid, thinks it's all a big laugh. "The ass is looking pretty darn succulent too."

He ducks under the water throwing himself backwards, splashing like a frisky sea lion. Arms like sloppy propellers and she can't help watch him. Imagines coming in after him, put a hand on the top of his skull and keep him under until he drowns. That'd serve him right. If only she'd thought she had half a chance, she would too. He chooses that moment to make his way up on the bank. Sunning himself in her eyes, not caring whether she's got murder or love on her mind. That arrogant strut, throwing his shoulders back, putting it all on display. The black fabric of his boxers sticking to him. Large feet slapping against the ground as he passes her. He shakes the water out of his hair like a big shaggy dog and smiles before turning his back on her. Bending down to snatch up his clothes from the ground.

It's all too much. Skin that shimmers where the sun's rays catch him, speckled, filtered through the tree-tops. The nape of his neck where whiskey-cream skin meets wet hair. How it lies slicked against his skull, revealing the long sensual curvature upwards, towards the rounded back of his skull. Tense long sinewy muscles moving under the surface, shiny from the minute rivers of water traveling down between his shoulder blades. The drops glittering on his back, like a million little magnets, making it impossible to look away. He chuckles to himself, a little ugly self-satisfied snigger.

_Too much. Too far._

The lid is lifted, something explodes behind her eyes. That violent streak that she blames someone else for. A white blinding light, like a climax.

He's wiping himself off on his shirt, his back still turned towards her. She moves without thinking, mauls down the high grass with her bare feet, like a tank. Two, three, four steps. Vision minimal, fire power on.

"You! You're enjoying this!"

A well-aimed push is all it takes for him to loose his balance. Looking almost comical where he lies sprawled like a giant crab on the red mud with its specks of grass.

"What the hell Freckles? What did you do that for?"

She forgets who she's dealing with. His foot hooked around her ankle brings her down like a log. Hitting an elbow straight in his belly, the air going out of him. The rest is a blur. One second they're wrestling, she tries to get a knee up his crotch. Wants to hurt him. Just wants it to hurt. The grunting and swearing, like grappling with a great big boar. The mud cold and slippery. Doesn't care. _Hurt him. Hurt him_. The bitterness gushing from her own wounds.

A pause. He's got her. Arms pegged above her head, the back of her hands, her knuckles pushed down into the ground, the humid mud. The vision of submission. Pebbles and small rocks digging into her back. And not a word spoken. Hangs over her, breathing hard through his nose. She knows he'd like to hit her but he doesn't. Just presses his lower body down hard, putting all of his weight on her so that she doesn't have enough power to get a good kick in. She yanks her head up fast, but this is so standard and she surprises no one. He grabs her hair, pulls it back with a hard tug so that her chin points up and it's downhill from there. Somewhere deep down, she knows – this was what she'd had in mind all along. She can smell beer and the sweet spiciness of clove tobacco on his breath where it comes hotly on her upper lip.

_Come, come, come. _

The point of no return. It always was with them. His mouth on hers. He is soft flowing caramel with a raw sting. Bastard. He's got her all open, all vulnerable. Always. _Missed you, missed you_. Bites down on his lip, eliciting a '_fuck!_' Someone's breathing hard, the thud-thud-thud of his heart, exaggerated, sounding like a drum to her. The primitive desire for him, always, mangling all reason, tearing into strips. The ridiculous notion of being friends is ripped away by lips and tongue, molding themselves against each other – like coming right home. Starved for him, tries to take all, take him. Not enough - how she lies fettered by his hands on her arms. Struggles to free herself. His thumbs moving over her wrists, baiting, teasing, brushing her skin. His grip solid, not giving her the slightest chance. Lets all of her muscles go soft and mellow. Resigns to this, how he tastes, how he feels. What she wants anyway. He can take her for all that she cares. _Take her._

"Jeez, you know what kind of fucking hell I'm living in?" Vibrating, an ugly kind of croak that doesn't sound like him.

"_You_? This is hell for _you_?"

The brilliant technicolor greens above him, breathing, ridiculously off beat. A flimsy umbrella of tree tops. Insects and birds rustling among the branches. Maybe that's it, perhaps it's the sensation of being home. Of being back on the island. The massiveness of male arms, framing her face, and that how he lifts himself up to look at her. Really look at her. The complete disarmament, eyes strangely dulcet and frail, a man's surrender. The stirring sounds of the jungle around them. Rustling of leaves, birds, the hum of insects. Like the garden of Eden gone berserk.

"You gotta' figure it out baby," The puffs of air as his words hit her skin. Searing against her. Doesn't say anything. She has lost her voice for now. He's kissed it away.

And he rolls off her just like that, releasing her, but she lets her arms remain above her head. They lie side by side, sucking in air, hard, looking straight up the ridiculous lush green of the treetops. Small birds flying by, dipping the surface of the reservoir chasing insects or drinking water or something.

"Are we gonna' talk about this?" he says under breath as he gets up, reaching on the ground for his discarded clothes. Steps into his denims, specks of mud on his legs, on his knees. Excruciating to watch him pull on jeans and shirt over his still wet skin and dripping boxers. The sound of the zipper. He throws her jeans to her. He wants to talk but she has no answers. Her compass is bust.

"No." _Yeah. Want you, want you._

"Okay fine! So this is how it's gonna' be? You come charging like Attila the Hun when you feel like it. Ravish me and then scamper off."

"Yes. That's it. I've just ravished you. That's it exactly." Like trying to build a house on quicksilver. A foolish idea from beginning to end.

An unpleasant sensation pulling the dry clothes over the wet soggy underwear, mud on the back of her legs, her back, her shoulders. No time to worry about that now. Draws her own shirt on. The jeans, buttoning them up with shaking fingers. _Fast, fast, fast._ Fragile like this, her skin still thirsting for him. The little dose of closeness, just getting started, not nearly enough. The kiss, only augmenting the hunger. She grabs her hair with both hands, leaning forward to wring out some water, dripping down across her bare feet, a streak of mud coloring the drops pink.

He stands there already fully dressed, looking down at her while she bends to pulls her boots on. She notices his jeans are frayed and worn at the hems, a little dirty where they've dragged against the ground.

"Oh, I see what this is… All randy and hormonal." He smirks at this, thinks he's so damn clever. That tone he's got now, _insincere_, slick with a self-confidence he hasn't got. Sawyer, the conman. "You know... I'll be damned if you ain't got a bun in the oven Freckles. "

It takes a moment for her to swallow it. Like a large piece of lard forced down her throat. Leaves her feeling sick. She grapples to get up. Needs to get away from him. From the stupid thoughtless things he's spewing out. She takes the first few steps waveringly.

_Won't listen to him. Can't. _ Scrambles to get away, forcing herself to move her legs. _Runs._ Needs to put distance between them, because she's drowning. The sound of water washing over her, suffocating her. Here on dry land. Slips on a rock and catches her fall with a hand on the ground. Hears him hollering behind her.

"You should be more careful in your condition Sweetcheeks!"

…

Great. _Fucking great._

Well that hadn't been hard to screw up, had it? The impulse control of a horny alley-cat. Fuck. Fuck. Ruining everything. The one thing he'd sworn he wouldn't do. All resolutions kicked to the curb, just like that. All it took, a little glimpse of her bare skin, her body pressed against his. His own damn fault, like playing with gasoline and matches, being surprised when it catches fire.

And it's bizarre to say the least, how when he comes sauntering out of the tree-line, out on the beach, she's sitting down by the beachfront, bare feet in the sand, chatting to Mario. The beach bum, with his half long hair and his surfer body. Skin tanned a deep bronze, slim and slight but muscular. They look like siblings sitting there side by side. Wavy dark hair in the same shade. He's no doctor, but maybe she sees Jack in him. That quiet, reserved quality he's got.

He sits down next to the sisters again. Suddenly drained, weak, fucking hopeless. His mind racing, restless and fretting. The kiss, leaves him more frustrated than ever, sitting here on the other side. Far from her.

"Where did you disappear to?" Lotte sits up on the blanket. Perfect and blonde and not _her_. Just a tool, and most likely the wrong one.

"Took a leak, lost my bearing a bit."

"Your hair is wet."

"Yeah will you look at that? How the hell did that happen you reckon? So what have you ladies been entertaining yourself with? Made eyes at the fine Captain Hook again?"

On autopilot, teasing her, but his heart is not in it. Far from it. He is lost, bobbing around like a worthless cork at sea. He had calculated it all, had set it up for maximum effect. The Danes, had thought they'd be appropriate bait. Would make her realize what she is missing. But she, she's as erratic and irrational as always. Hell, it ought to be easy. The way they fit together. Dark ugly chards of broken people, needy and enervating as hell. Tenderhearted and clumsy. But beautiful together. She can be happy with him. He's certain. But she has to come to the realization on her own. Can't do it for her.

He leaves in the dinghy before her, bringing most of the guests back. Can't bear being near her, can't stand not being close. They ignore each other, exactly like he had thought they would. As if none of it had happened by that creek. The kiss, something that meant more than a kiss. But it's nothing now, ignored and swept under the carpet. As if she didn't feel it, same as him.

Just get here. Sometime soon.

…

He smokes by the railing. Watches the weird sunset, apricot spewing across indigo. Something almost tacky about these tropical sunsets. The wind has picked up and he relights his cigarette several times. The crackle of fire from the clove cigarette, a few flecks of ash hitting his shirt, burning tiny little holes.

"Hey man, that was a neat little outing today huh?"

"Yep. It had its moments."

And that guy, Pieter, just stands there, shuffling his feet. Annoying the heck out of him. Wants to be left alone. Still lightheaded and disoriented. Trying to make sense of that. What just happened on that little island. This guy, like a goddamn groupie the way he is hot on his heels all of the time.

Pieter digs in his pocket, comes up with a little metal box he flips open. Can't say he's all that surprised to be offered a goddamn joint. Neatly rolled with a bunch of others.

"It's sharp weed Boss. _Afghani_, the very best."

Should have known. Trust Hurley to employ a fucking pothead. He'll probably end up drowning some poor hapless bastard.

"Hey, hold on. What happened to that 'my body's a temple crap' buddy?"

"Hey it's herbal you know…" he says looking slyly at Sawyer, firing up. "All natural. None of that chemical shite you put in your body old man."

_Each to his own_, he thinks. But hell, it doesn't sit well with him. Not the diving instructor. Not being called 'old man' either come to think of it. Who the fuck does he think he is?

"Hey, so where did you take off to?"

_Mind your own_, he wants to sneer, but this snotty little smartass is no match for him.

"Just took a lil' walk-about. What's it to you?"

Doesn't particularly like this guy. Something shifty about him. Licks his front teeth in a way that makes him look vulgar. Like someone with a set of prosthetics, old teeth on a young guy. On the other hand, he'd be just the type to have the whole damn set knocked out of his mouth. He's got that grating kind of presence that just pushes certain buttons.

"Through jungle as dense as that!"

"Yeah."

Pieter leans in close, his breath sweet from the weed with undertones of something sharp and unpleasant. Sawyer smells a rat.

"I saw her leave. Saw you following her right after..."

He refrains from telling him to go fuck himself. Just watches the way the waves dip and rise beneath them.

"She's not your 'cousin' at all, hey?"

The voice, like a snake's hiss near his ear. Wants to smash the shit-faced little prick into a pulp.

"So what did you do out there? Did you give it to her good?" _Think Zen_, he tells himself but fuck knows what that means except he's got too much on his plate to risk adding a murder to that stinking mess. "So what did you do? Pumped her against a palm tree? Gave her splinters in that sweet little ass, hey?"

Either he beats him bloody with the bucket near his feet or he keeps on pretending. Turns his head away from him, acts as if he's mighty interested in the damn horizon, pulling the smoke in sharply, blowing it out through his nostrils. _Ice in belly_. Don't make mush of the staff. Breathe in. Breathe out.

"I'm right aren't I? You guys are fuck-buddies? No way in hell you're her cousin!"

"Oh you wanna' dance buddy – that what you want?" Growling, something awakening, a string of nerve connections transmitted in a split second from brain to elbow. How it shoots out. Hitting the sonofabitch across the nose. Just once. Hard bone against capillaries. Satisfied by the way the pervert jumps around like some bouncy toy, swearing, holding his hands over his nose, blood splattering on the deck. He still has a great aim.

"Shit, shit! What's wrong with you!"

"You wanted in on my fucking dance-card, so don't bitch about the music buddy." he says to the ocean. Flicks his cigarette into the sea and retreats. Hopes the sleazebag wakes up with a nose like a cauliflower tomorrow.

…

He's on first deck, helping Mario fill up the tubes after the day's dive. Or helping, that would be slicing it sideways. As far as she can tell, he's doing absolutely nothing useful just hangs around with a big fat grin on his face, fingering those tubes every now and then, showing off. He's still in his wet suit, has it rolled down to his waist. Upper body glossy and sleek, the bulky shoulders all bunched up where he crouches on the deck.

Danish girls also in their wet suits, chattering, flicking their hair – flirting with him.

_Put your clothes on_, she thinks. Doesn't want to share him, not even a little. _Hers_. He still is. And just as she turns to leave, he looks up, wiping away the stringy fringe, bleached a light wheat blond by now. Winks at her, _freaking winks_! A smile that sails by the Danish girls and lands splat in the middle of her face. A smile that makes her think, it's not over. Not lost.

How he barges into her cabin that afternoon. Not bothering knocking. As if he's got something important to say.

She isn't alone, Pieter has dropped in for a chat, sits on the cot next to her but is up like a shot at the sight of Sawyer in the doorway. Larger than life. Something about the way his eyes narrow, makes her think he has something to do with the sorry state of Pieter's nose. Claims he walked into a door post but she just doesn't buy it.

"Guess I'll see you later then… Ethel. "

"Sure, see you at dinner ," she says and plasters on a big fake smile. If he can, so can she. She remains where she is, sitting with her feet drawn up on the wooden frame. A nail polish bottle in her hand. He folds his lips in between his teeth, jerking his head back. Chin up in the air. Stands there on the doorstep, as if preparing for a battle.

"You gotta' stop doing that."

"What?"

"You know what! The innocent Bambi eyes. It's wearing thin Sweetheart."

She's such a coward, the flutter of her heart, having him storming in like this. Hoping he'll take things in his own hands. Stares at the way the smoothness of his abs disappearing down into the opening of his white shirt, unbuttoned about ten buttons too far. The shadows that form across his chest, the valleys and hills of muscles underneath. Can't look at his face.

"What? I'm not doing anything. Just sitting here minding my own business."

"That guy is a creep, stay out of his way Freckles!" He gestures sloppily, a thumb poking in the direction of Pieter's exit route.

"And you know this… how exactly?"

"Yeah well, I just know alright. That guy is no fucking good. Don't let him put stars in your eyes, that's all I'm saying. You're smarter than that baby."

Hates that he calls her baby, or Sugar or Sweetpea or any of those faux endearment that he uses on every single female on earth. It means fuck all. Less than nothing.

"Don't see how that concerns you."

Outrageous. The dictating what she does, and with whom, acting like her older brother. It's wrong. All wrong. He makes his way to the little shelf by her bed. Picks with her stuff. Taking them up one by one and studies them as if they were of extraordinary interest. Her shampoo bottle, a blush-on compact, a deodorant.

"Well it _does_, alright. Just get used to it. You want a playmate, you pick the other one. The little skinny Aussie. Reckon that's a good enough kid, got a receding hairline though… that doesn't bode well for the future. He's what, all of eighteen?"

"Twenty five. And stop touching my stuff!" He fingers her hair brush. Draws a long dark curly hair out of it. Gross. She knows he does it just to annoy her. "What did you mean by what you said...?"

"When?" The bastard twists the cap off her roll-on and sniffs it. Sniffs it! "I say a lot of dumb things."

"Yeah don't you just. Hey, lay off it! It's disgusting." Puts the cap back on – not in a hurry, watches her with a half smile. He hasn't changed one bit. Still loves getting her all riled up.

"Smells like you… Sooo, you were saying Honey bug?" Flicks open her blush-on compact, pulling a finger across it. A little pink fleck on his index finger that he rubs with his thumb. How the hell does he do it? Turning anything ordinary salacious? Even that little gesture makes her think of sex, though God knows why.

"How is this hell for _you_?" Hardly more than a whisper. Excruciating to talk to him when he's like this. The cabin is too small, the ship too, nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. White shirt, too bright against his tanned skin. The contrast highly disturbing, his wrists emerging out of the pristine cotton, leading eyes to his hands. Those hands; anything but innocent. "What is it that I have to figure out?"

He sighs, replacing her compact on the shelf, as if she's the one enervating _him_ all of a sudden. Shuffles towards her, heavy feet, as if he's got chewing gum under his soles. Plumps himself down next to her. Pushing into her, hip against hip.

"Oh well, let's put it this way _Hon_… How's the buddy-partner thing working out for you?"

"I asked first." She pulls her knees together, curling her toes over the edge of the bed.

Takes the little bottle of nail polish out of her hand wiggling it between his fingers. They were so close. Doesn't know why it makes her so nervous having him here. A chaos of agitated wing-flapping in her belly. The strong tang of salt and sea from him.

"Look… what happened back on that island… I reckon…" His courage always greater than hers, makes her feel like a slug. Passive and pointless. Always the braver one of the two of them.

"What about it?" She looks fixedly at her feet and isn't at all prepared for his hand that reaches for the one nearest to him. Places it on his lap and she has to shift her position not to sit completely distorted. His long lean fingers, nimble on her skin, smoothing over the arch of her foot up above her ankle. She tries pulling it back but he holds it firmly. What a fine pair they are.

_The king of lies and the queen of denial._

"You and me, water under the dam and all that, I ain't holding it against you. But don't mess with me Pumpkin..."

"I'm not..."

He unscrews the little glass bottle, using his teeth to hold the cap while he twists it using one hand. The other still on her foot in a secure grip. The intoxicating smell of nail polish.

"Say what you mean, mean what you say. Ain't no other way."

Preposterous coming from the conman who never follows this gem of advice himself. Always pretending, always playing. Few and far in between, those brief glimpses of the man behind the act. Maybe this is one of those times.

His hand steady and precise, she's not the first girl he does this for. Not a smudge, not a bubble. Smooth and perfect. _There are no firsts for him_, she reminds herself. He's done it all. His head bent forward. His eyes on her face, peering through his hair. That little boy's look. A little insecure, half pissed, half expectant.

He breaks eye contact. Slowly lifts her foot off his lap. Brings up the other one. She sends her nerves packing, pushes away the fear. Doesn't even know what she's got to be scared off. Just a habit. Just years and years of being wary. Of being mistrustful of everyone. Never completely safe. What's wrong with her? He's here isn't he? No one forced him to come, no one asked him, and still he's here painting her stupid toe nails.

"No more." She means it to come out softly but it hits the air angry and prickly. An unreasonable demand. It hangs there between them, sullen and childish.

"No more of _what _Freckles?" Grumpy, lines sharper around his mouth and the chin protruding. She knows that expression. Not what it seems like.

"The flirting, the women... the cute stuff...no more. I can't watch it."

"You've got it Princess," he says gruffly.

"I've got it!" Pulls her foot back, rubbing it as if he's hurt her with his warm gentle hands. Suspect. The whole situation is off. "Just like that?"

"Yep. Just like that." Nods handing her the nail polish, holding her eyes a moment too long. A stare that undresses her, peels off all her bullshit. Stroking her hand with his thumb before he lets go.

Heaves himself up, and she wants to stop him. Come back. Stay. Doesn't understand him. What it all means. Focuses on how he lumbers across the floor, arms hanging loosely by his side. The outline of his shoulders, a black silhouette against the glaring sunlight outside. Closes the door quietly behind him without turning to look at her again.

…

They're in his cabin, going through the list of purchases to be picked up next time they dock in Jakarta or Bali. It seems they are alright, no gaps have opened up in the ground to swallow them up, no bolts of lightning have stricken anyone's head. But all is relative.

He is fucked.

For five nights now, he's waited for her. Lying awake hour after hour trying to detect her footsteps on the deck outside his cabin, listening for an impatient hand on the handle of his door. He's got clean sheets on his bed. What fucking dope does that? Washes them up and changes them every second day. Every night, that ridiculously deluded hope that she might join him, that she will finally follow through. Come around.

But she's keeping up the charade surprisingly well. Neither of them are foreign to this, to pretending. It's all they really know. Looking innocently up a tree, ignoring the stomping furious elephant calling for their attention, ready to make mincemeat of them. Hasn't acknowledged their little slip with a word even. She spends plenty of time with that surfer kid, Mario-what's his name. Doesn't know if that means she took his worthless piece of advice to heart but they seem to have a nice little thing going on. A quiet little budding friendship maybe. Hell, he doesn't know, and that little nerdy boy doesn't threaten him one bit, still he just wants to wreck it for her. Even though he was the one who started it. Started this whole 'moving on' business in the first place. That other creep hangs around her like a bad smell as well. As slippery as snot on a door handle. And he knows the type, hyena dressed as boy wonder. Is pissed that Kate can't see it. Should be able to spot the kind.

He's aware that he's sliding, slipping, loosing his grip. It's getting harder and harder to keep up his part of the script. Finds himself gawping at her constantly, the Danes' chatter like white noise in his ears. Hoping he'll catch her eyes.

One half-assed jungle make-out session, all it took to bring him off keel. To fog his clarity, throw all that he knows to the wind. Gone, blown away like that. Now he hankers for her with a renewed fervor. The little reminder of how fucking _right_ it can be. How she belongs to him. No matter what she might choose to believe.

She's scrappy as hell today, curls fizzy and wild over her shoulders and he loves her like this. No make-up, no pretensions, as if she couldn't' care less what he might think of her. Dressed in an ugly loose orange t-shirt over jeans, folded a couple of time, leaving her ankles bare. Like some female version of Huckleberry Finn. A hint of green to her complexion, biting her lips constantly. A little wound where the skin has been bit off. Wonders if he might have done that, by the creek.

"Ten bottles of Rum James? I don't understand how we can have gone through it in only one week." Eyes on her mouth. Kiss her, he thinks. _Kiss her. _Forget all the other crap.

"Well, the Danes… they are a thirsty people Peanut. They want what they want." Pretends to be interested in what she says, unable to listen, unable to concentrate. Wants nothing but to taste her. Soften up that truculent pout, make that mouth sigh and gasp. Finds it impossible to keep his focus here next to her.

Why the _fuck_ do they have to do this in his cabin?

_Ah,_ wonders, just wonders if she'd catch her breath if he were to make a move. Slither a hand under that monstrosity of a shirt. Take a little detour uphill, maybe dip down to the valley. Wonders if she might sock him in the eye or open up, let him pull the orange fashion crime over her head. Can practically see how the dark curls might fall back down across her breasts afterwards. How she'd sit looking as scrumptious as toffee pecan pie, in only denims and a shy smile. Peers at her, trying to figure out if she's wearing a goddamn bra or not. Can't tell. Wants to casually place a hand on her back, waiting for the right opportunity to investigate further. But hell, it's all just a fantasy. She's all business, gives no hint of anything else.

The tension in the cabin, all his own.

And why, after all these weeks is he back right where he had started? He's done like dinner. He bores himself, the way his mind runs on a loop. He _i_s boring. Pathetic and mind-numbingly tedious and a major hypocrite to boot. How he wants her to move on when he's incapable of doing the same. Something's got to give.

The afternoon air is stuffy. It hasn't rained for weeks and the constant heat and sunshine is getting to him. He keeps wiping the sweat off his upper lip. Intensely aware of how she perspires too. A slightly savage tint contaminating her innate fragrance in the most arousing way, a darker spot spreading under her breasts, tinting the orange a rusty burnt sienna.

"Seems like they get what they want too, most of the time."

He doesn't bother answering. Knows what she's getting at. The snappy short tone she uses most of the time with him lately. Poor baby. It's all getting to her. What's more, there's no truth in it. He'd said he'd lay off them, and he has. Besides, after that kiss, torturing her has lost most of its amusement value. The balance has shifted. Fucking hard to play indifferent when your own damn body betrays you in every which way.

She shoots up without warning, rickety steps across the floor.

"Hey, hey, hey! What did I do? Where you off to girl!"

Stumbles towards his toilet, almost ripping its door off the hinges. Would probably have kicked it down if she were wearing any shoes. Hears how she retches from within, the door slightly open.

"You okay in there girl?"

"Yeah… just… fu… perfect." The flush of the toilet, the sound of water pouring in the wash basin and she comes out, unsteady like a newborn foal, looking like death on legs. Face glossy and dripping. Staggers towards his bed, eyes glazed over. Doesn't see him now.

"Move over. I need to lie down."

And he's not late to obey. In his bed, _finally_. Though not exactly how he'd have pictured it, but in his bed nonetheless.

"Something you ate Sugar pie?" Secretly proud over the fresh white of his sheets, the clean smell. Though she doesn't seem especially impressed where she lies like a zombie smelling faintly sour.

"Just shut up and continue writing," she exhales. One hand hanging off the bed, the other on her chest like she's giving an oath. Picks up the writing pad from the floor where she's thrown it. All thoughts of sultry exercises on his clean sheets are buried deep down.

"Always a pleasure. So, ten crates of white wine and two of red."

"Sure, whatever – she says. Hand dangling by the wrist. Her eyes closed. He moves closer, butting her inwards with his hip to make space for him sitting there on her side. Touches her forehead, smooth and cool like marble.

"You're not hot. Want me to get you something?"

"Yeah. A bucket. Quick!"

"You've got it." Grossed out and a little puzzled too. And though his own stomach turns at the sight he holds her hair back, like the gentleman he isn't. Has to turn his head a little, avert his eyes. Ain't his thing to look at re-runs. Woman puking their guts out. An automatic association on his tongue. The mellowing of her hard lines, the breasts. Fuller and those fine blue veins he'd noticed at the reservoir.

_Shit._

Somehow, it doesn't surprise him at all. The writing emblazoned on the proverbial wall. The cyclical nature of sin and karma_. _Everything that has happened since he looked her up in Bali. Every single thing that they've been through like a taunting opportunity to make things right. Only, he's failed miserably over and over again. _This._ Triumph or abyss, he doesn't know. All depends on her. Is she strong enough?

For now, he settles for stroking hair back, petting her head awkwardly. Shit. Is he supposed to say something? Is he supposed to pretend as if it's raining? Probably. But after she throws up for the fifth time in a row he can't hold back any longer. And he shouldn't have to tell her in the first place. Hardly a wave at sea, they've eaten the same damn lasagna for lunch and she's the only one here puking like a kitten.

"Jeez… You're as knocked up as a peg on a wall Freckles."

The words don't make it anymore real. But they make sense. He'd been sort of kidding back at the reservoir, but not now. She's right, it's no joke, how she shakes her head above the bucket in a way that makes him worried she'll dip her curls into the mess.

"Seasick." Obstinate, bull-headed woman, but he envies her. Wishes he could bury his head in the sand too. He doesn't want to face the possibility either, no more than she does.

"_K__nocked up_," he mutters under his breath.

"Seasick."

"Knocked up Sugar plum." And so they continue while she dry heaves and pukes and has to lie down every five seconds. He walks back and forward to the bathroom to clean the bucket up, puts soap in it to help mask the smell. Brings water and mints and she stubbornly tries to complete the darn shopping list. It goes on for hours. The words that accompany her retching, repeated over and over again._ Seasick knocked-up seasick knocked-up. _Might have laughed at it all if it hadn't been so darn flaky, like being stuck with a mental patient.

Maybe that's what she has to believe. He has a feeling that they are both actors in a surrealistic film. But this is what she does. And who the hell is he to say whether this, the rebuffing all signs, putting up a defiant front isn't the healthier option.

…

They are anchored near some spot, some marvel of coral reef, the bee's knees according to those witless yahoos, the diving instructors.

The Danes are on their last week so they're more interested in working on their tans up on upper deck than poking at sea anemones and corals. That asshole Pieter is so freaking wound up he's practically bouncing. Like a hyperactive child and the sight makes him feel old. Follows him down the steps to help prepare the gear. Or help mess it up. Just wants to keep an eye on him. Doesn't trust the guy, though he has no good reason why. Perhaps it's all the time he spends slinking around trying to put the move on Kate. Has all intentions of replacing him as soon as they get back to Bali. Just wants him out of the way.

It's still early, time for the first dive and he does a double take when he finds her there, waiting. Like a sleek little dolphin. The skin tight diving suit. Comes up from behind, her buttocks rounded in a way he's not used to. Like a juicy little morsel.

He knows it's wrong but he can't look at her now without straightening his back, blowing his chest up. Something of him, inside of her. Something irresistibly life affirming about it. But he doesn't dare venture beyond that. Stops his wandering thoughts in their track. Doesn't think of the future, the consequences or what it might mean. Right now, all it is to him; some kind of assurance, something that irrefutably ties her to him. His.

"Hey, what's up?" She turns and he is almost blinded by that smile. Hasn't seen it in quite a while. Not _that_, the genuinely happy little Muppet-show grin.

The diving suit. _Shit._ She's never shown an interest in it before, has snorkeled quite a bit, but no diving. Why now? And why on earth with that lowlife?

"What do you think you're doing?" This is new and he doesn't like it. Not one bit. _Diving_. The puking. What the fuck is wrong with her? He's no damn doctor but even he can see that the combination ain't optimal. Doesn't look the least bit queasy this morning. But that doesn't mean it isn't so.

"Pieter is going to get me started on the diving lessons and…"

"Oh, is he now?" _Now!_

_The hell he is! _Momentarily distracted by soft swell of her stomach, like a sandbank, blown there by chance. The way the suit is slicked against her boobs. Evidently blossoming in this department too. But the fucking diving. Hell! Where did that come from? _Pieter_, the crafty sonofabitch, he put her up to this.

Think fast, _think on your feet you big dumb dunce_. She ain't going. As easy as that. The shadow of a confident smile on that damned jellybeans face where he crouches behind her with the equipment.

He elks off, takes the steps up to the upper sun deck in two's. He's good at this. At least this he's got. Five minute later he has the two spoiled Danish brats whining that they'd really, but really like to join the dive this morning. And too fucking bad, there ain't enough tanks to go around. But guests go first, of course.

They watch the ladies get their asses into diving suits too and the whole bunch of them climb down to the dinghy. Pieter looking like someone has spit in his ice cream cone. Hah, ruined that plan faster than he could have said 'loser'.

And he doesn't feel guilty at all, even though she stands there looking like someone's summer cat. Left behind. Pitiful. But he can exhale. Takes a smoke standing by the railing, watching the dinghy drive off. She bumps into him with her hip. Still in that darn wetsuit, looking downright indecent on her. Wants to cover her up, hide her away. For him. _Shit._ This is so _not_ over.

"Too bad you couldn't join them Shortcake. Looks like a nice day for a dip in the sea though, maybe you wanna'..." Put on a goddamn bikini and come down into the peacock blue water with him so that he'll have an excuse to touch her. Feel her up, check out those new curves.

"Fuck you Sawyer! I know what you did." Leaves him with a beautiful view of her budding plumpness as she storms off, naked feet pounding against the deck.

…

Late afternoon he's taking a break from his host duties. Needs a breather from the wondertwins, they are really getting on his nerves. He's hogging the lounge chair at the stern on lower deck, thumbing some old Reader's Digest.

"So, why don't you want your belle diving, man?" Pieter comes up from behind, as if from nowhere. Has probably been skulking around in the shadows, waiting in the wings. Shit-eating grin. Young buck trying to affirm his position with the alpha male. He ain't in the mood for this crap.

"She ain't in the shape for diving, pal." Sawyer can't say he's keen on company, at least not this one. The jerk just makes himself comfortable in the chair beside his. Grunting as he stretches out his legs.

"Or… you're worried I'll make a move on her." The mocking tone, making Sawyer's bristles stand attention. The bullshit antenna lightning up. He's not here for small talk. _He wants something._

"Reckon you couldn't make a move on a knitted rug buddy." Flicks a page in his book, feigning an intense interest in his reading material.

"You wanna' bet? She looks mighty lonely little _cuz_… "

"When pigs fly, _Milksop_." Aware of how his chin shoots out when his fists get itchy.

"You're so busy with the busty blondes, I've got half in by now…"

"The only thing half in is your jawbone. I'd shift it real good for you. "

Hears how he shifts in the chair but refuses to look up at him. Give him any attention. He's after something alright. Wants to pick a fight by the sound of it. But he won't be baited that easily. Got a business to think of, ain't no sense in bludgeoning the staff to death. Much as he'd like to.

"See, I don't think you would."

"And why's that Einstein?" Bored with this pissing contest. Who's got the biggest dick. Wants the little fucker to take it elsewhere. Exhausted, he puts his book down, still open in his lap. Takes his glasses off.

"Cause I might be an avid viewer of television… Yeah that's right. I looove television." He's just upped the ante. He's got Sawyer's undivided attention now, and he knows it. The casual tone, with the thinly masked threat.

"Wow, thrilling, really fucking scintillating information, pal." Sawyer has been around long enough to know when someone's got a good grip on his balls. Doesn't move, just waits for the inevitable, holding his breath. And sure enough.

"Is it? Yeah, there is this great program I used to watch on cable..."

Creepy crawlies under his skin. An army of cockroaches, their disgusting little feet. _Fuck. _No, fucking way. Not now.

"Get _to_ it asswipe."

"You know how you just feel like you know someone… sometimes. Like their face is so familiar to you…"

He stands up. The block of ice forming in his stomach. Wants to kill him, do away with him. Keep her safe. That's all that matters.

The first impulse is to chuck him over the railing. Seriously considers it, for more than an instant. Could make it look like an accident. _Pothead, over board_. Not all that far fetched. _Walk away._ Cool it. Think it over. He's uncharacteristically calm. Survival instincts kicking in or the fact that it's about her. He has to keep a clear mind.

"Lucky for you, I ain't in the mood to dance today."

Fast, away, needs to steady himself. _Think Sawyer, think_. Hears him calling behind his back:

"Ethel is a _very_ pretty name… Very pretty..."

_This close_. This close to turning on his heels and spinning that sonofabitch over board. Wouldn't regret it one damn bit.

Should have known their days were numbered. _Think_. Don't panic.

…

_I have the feeling I'm taking too long to reach the finale. Guess it's inevitable that a story running this long becomes a bit repetitive and wearisome. Sorry if that's the case. Also, hope it isn't too confusing with all of the new characters, had to put a cast in for the storyline's sake. _

_Thanks for reading!_


	35. Another walk on the ledge

_Thank you so much for all of the reviews and for still reading!_

_Thanks to K. for something beautiful you said (wrote) that inspired this whole part of the story. Something about not hurting others even though you have been hurt yourself. Of the strength it must take to break out of that cycle. You put it a whole lot better - but I loved the idea behind it._

_Rated M for language, mature subjects and sexual content._

_Disclaimer: Not mine. None of it. Just borrowing._

…

**Another walk on the ledge**

…

It's way past midnight, the ship is dead calm and he can't catch a darn wink. Pieter and fifty-nine ways to do away with him twirling around in his brain like angry fireflies.

_Her._ He tries not to think of her at all.

At two o'clock he gives up, there isn't anything he can do before they get to Bali anyway, spare a drowning accident that is. He pulls a t-shirt over his head and pads barefoot out in his shorts. The heat is pressing, the breeze almost non-existent. His shirt sticking to his skin. The moon is so ludicrously full, it looks fake. Like a big-ass lantern slung up in the sky for laughs. He makes headway down to the kitchen for a little midnight raid. A silent prayer of thanks when he finds the door unlocked. Ni Luh normally protective of her domains.

Raffling through the freezer, hit by a sudden irresistible craving for ice cream. And a beer. No, not beer, wants to get properly drunk but suspects the good stuff is safely under lock. Ni Luh's liqueur stash like Fort Knox. A noise behind him makes him turn around.

And there she is. Equally barefoot and looking at him in round-eyed surprised as she swishes in. Her hair down her back, touching her waist now, a wild cave-woman mess, long strands of it across her face as if she's been roughed up, curls teasing him, annoying him, the way they form long sloppy spirals. Wants to twirl them around his fingers. Wants to do a hell of a lot more. Drive his hands through all that hair as his hips meet hers. Her lips unnaturally red against her pale skin, as if someone has kissed them raw. The fluorescent lightning accentuating freckles. Something about her, like this. Like having a three tiered cake in front of you. _Perfect. _Dripping in frosting and covered in elaborate sugar flowers. And you just want to stick your fingers in it, mess it all up, lick the icing off.

"What are you doing up Freckles?"

"Transmitting national secrets to the Soviets… what do you think?" She sails by him in some kind of black boy shorts and a willow green camisole. And it looks staged, too damn good to be true. Nipples clearly discernable beneath the slinky fabric, an irresistible wobble when she moves. Ought not to wander about like that. Anyone could see her. That pervert Pieter if no one else. _Christ,_ wants to pull up behind her and grapple her breasts under that top. Wants to see how they fit in his hands nowadays. Bets they'd spill over a bit. A hand-full and a little more, tips peaking out between his sprawled out fingers.

"The beer is in the other fridge." Pokes her tongue at him. As if she is seven and he's an annoying pig-tail-pulling kid. But they're no kids. And she's frustratingly more woman than ever, at least outwards. _Damn,_ those breasts of hers, give or take a little, exactly like the thousand of other pairs he's fondled in his life. Insignificantly different. Just boobs for God's sake, just like the ones the Danes are sporting, nothing special at all. And if he felt like it, he could be thrusting himself inside a moaning, squirming blonde, squeezing her tits - right now. _If he'd wanted to._ Still, he stands here slavering like a damn fool over her.

Leans against the freezer, enjoying the sight of her standing there, opening the lower cabinets, dredging for something. Legs, toned and strong beneath the shorts. The smooth pale skin. Wants to come up soundlessly behind her back. Run his hands up and down those thighs.

"Wadn't looking for beer Darling." Not looking for anything now. Doesn't want beer. Doesn't want ice cream, doesn't want anything you can eat with a spoon or drink from a bottle.

_Wants her._

Wants to bend her over that cool marble countertop and just take her. A purely physical want, like a white-hot band behind his eyes. Has to shake it off, this won't do.

"So, cravings too _huh,_ Sweetcheeks?"

"Cute, Sawyer." She shrugs. Doesn't seem all that bothered by his presence. Continues moving down the line of cabinets. Opening one, closing another.

"Hey, I'm on your side Freckles." Wants to tell her about Pieter. But he doesn't want to rock the boat. Doesn't want to give her a push, an excuse to run. She just might skip on him in the next harbor.

"Funny way of showing it." Yeah, you have no idea. How he's spend the entire evening trying to think up a way to neutralize the Pieter situation. A diving tube clanked against the crown of that flimsy blonde head. That's the best one he's got right now. And she's distracting as hell. A lamb steak prancing around in front of the big bad wolf.

The shorts, some kind of stretchy fabric, making her butt look round and full. He sighs hard enough for her to hear. She casts a disinterested glance backwards, clearly choosing to ignore him. She continues to look for whatever she has her mind set on. Whatever she's craving, it sure isn't him.

A little fantasy never harmed anyone though. Indulges himself. Envisions sneaking up behind her to cup that ass, driving his fingers inside the waistband, sliding them down. Peachy fuzz skin under his hands. Warm and wet and so, so sweet. He knows she is. Remembers exactly how she feels, how she tastes, how she smells. Is picturing how he'd hoist her up on the counter and which route his fingers might take next when disaster strikes. Shooting all thoughts of romance to hell's end. How she doubles over. Convulsions racking her, like a sick cat.

_No_ - not that crap again.

_And hell._ Puke everywhere, her aim isn't much to brag about. Dripping down the side of the cabinets on the countertop, the floor. He does his best to clean it up, grabbing a cloth and a sponge off the counter. His own stomach turns. The sour stench conquering the kitchen in no time effectively sobering him up from any physical urges he might have harbored. She's still hulking, crying and puking, having made her way to the washbasin, swearing, cussing like a sailor. Her back heaving, hands gripping the countertop on each side of the sink. He freezes like that, the view of that obstinate flint-hard spine poking out through the silk of the camisole gluing him to the spot. Fills him with such desperation. And it's not funny now. Not one bit. A frailty that he finds hard to swallow.

"Kate. Shit…"

"Back off Sawyer!" As if he might attack her now, at her weakest. Bent in such a torturous way, he can see the outline of her her ribs through the back of her top. Ass in the air. Just pitiful now. She turns the faucet on, splashing her face with water.

"I wasn't gonna' say nothing…"

She stands up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Water dripping down her face, gathering in large drops at her chin. The neck of her camisole stained wet. He lets the sponge and the washcloth fall to the floor, just loosens his fingers around them, opening his hands up. Ready to make a run for it, the way she glowers at him. Straight in the eyes and something has changed, shifted. Doesn't expect the hatred in them. Makes him want to back away slowly.

"No? You've got _nothing_ to say all of a sudden? No jokes? No funny comments?"

"I mean... I was only messing with you, but hell girl. Shit..." Finds it hard to breathe. _Fuck._ She is. There is a clump of cells in there, growing, taking her over, imposing. And he. He's already fucked one kid up. And hell, he can't do this. Not like this. "I didn't mean to… Was just winding you up..."

Had just wanted a reaction. _Any._

"Stop talking!" Baring her teeth like a little saber-toothed tiger. "And cut _that _out too!"

"Cut what out? Ain't doing nothing."

"Stop looking at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"That!" She thrusts her index finger in the direction of his face. Her mouth like the grill of an old Ford, teeth bared up to the gums. Upper and lower. "The pity party, cut it out!."

Sweat breaking out across his forehead. Stands there straight upside down watching as she rotates ninety degrees, and he knows he should move out of her way. Knows this part. How her cheeks go taut and her nostrils flare. That little tiny squint. The calm just before the storm. His mouth moving, tongue forming words on its own. Things that have to be said. Need to be aired. Doesn't want to be the one to do it. Wants to be the one claiming 'seasickness' hiding his head in a big old pile of sand.

"We can figure it out Freckles..."

And there it is. The first lunge forward, propelling him backwards. Followed by short taunting little thrusts. He stumbles.

"We? We are 'we' now? 'We' James? Really?" The 'James' said the same way you might say pest or plague or dysentery. Like an illness.

_Well fuck. _Wipes a hand across his eyes. Doesn't want a damn kid. He never did. One thing to want to impregnate her. Another to deal with the complicated, convoluted consequences of it all. Can't. Won't. That whole other abyss he doesn't want to look down into. Her losing another. Him, a father. An impossible combination. That ridiculously blue-eyed baby Cassie had shoved in his face in prison. Freakishly perfect, looking like she'd cut the kid straight out of a milk commercial. Had felt nothing. Had just wanted that damn picture away from him.

_Can't._

"Hey. I'm not the one who took off! Don't lay this whole thing on me! I wanted to be with you!"

"You self absorbed son of a bitch. I told you. I told you I couldn't do this again. Told you..." her voice escalating, increasingly hysteric undertones. The blame game, he can take it._ Let her._

He tries to keep steady, lets her shove him all she wants. If that makes her feel any better. God knows he's deserved it. Deserves anything, everything she might choose to dish out. She has him backed up against the cabinets, a knob digging into his buttock. Eyelids clipping, a little girl tremble to the bottom lip. He knows this too. The signs, and he waits for her to start crying so that he can take her in his arms and rock her and whisper that it'll be alright, just fine, when the first punch hits him across the chinbone, the next somewhere else, fuck if he knows. Just knows this; how she pummels him. Has to fight the urge to hit her back. Holds his arms up, trying to throw her fists off, away.

But what happens next is worse. Much worse. Hurts a hell of a lot more than the hard knuckled punches she throws like a goddamn pro'. She spins around against the cabinet next to him and slams her forehead against its corner.

And again and again and again. _Thud. Thud. Thud._

Until he unfreezes. Throws his arms around. Stop it. Has to stop her. Restraining her the best he can. She tries to head-butt him too but he's expecting it, that's a given. Ducks and dodges, but there is no running from this.

"Schh girl, don't do this. Not this." They collapse on the floor in a pile, he hits his hipbone on the skirting of the cabinets, an elbow on the floor. The way she squirms and kicks and fights. He ought to be used to this. He if anyone should be able to handle this. He presses her head against his shoulder. Hooking his arm around it to stop her from trying to bang it again. Thrashing and bucking. Legs wrapped around her like a big fucking python.

Feels how she slackens against him, the fight ebbing out of her. Like holding a large rag doll. Her head lolling on her neck as if it's too heavy to hold up. Holds her like a goddamn baby, cradling her neck in the crook of his arm.

_She has lost it. _She has lost it completely. Her forehead bruising already, swelling up, a big fat lump. Ugly, self inflicted. Her mouth wide open in that soundless cry of hers. Eyes like thin incisions. Nothing there. Not his girl. Buries her face against his chest. At least that. At least she's hanging on to him now. Her nails sharp through the fabric at his shoulders. The faint acid smell from her mouth.

And though Sawyer doesn't believe in God, not really, he senses being watched. A taunting all-powerful finger pointing straight at him. 'Here. You got what you wanted. Now deal with it dumbass!' The guilt choking him, how he must have exacerbated this whole psychotic breakdown, brought it on. His fault from the beginning to the end.

"Schh, it'll be okay baby girl. It'll be just fine, "he mumbles stroking her back, though honestly he doesn't really believe it will be. Not right now.

"You fucking bastard," she squeaks and maybe she's crying, maybe not. Swinging, swaying her in his arms. A gentle rhythm aimed to soothe her, to comfort himself.

"Yeah… yeah I'm a bastard… just let it out."

On some level or on all levels she must have known all along. All the while he'd taken the stupidest, lowest kind of digs at her. Making it into a cruel joke so that he wouldn't have to deal with it. The stupid thing at the reservoir, in her cabin. Had picked on her the way he always picks on her. He'd told himself, he'd wanted to push things to the edge. Make her face up to it. But that's not it. The gravity of the situation, he hadn't wanted to think that far. Dead babies, betrayals and lost hopes. The fucked up state of the two of them

"I don't wanna' - don't - wanna'…" Like a child with a temper tantrum. He doesn't wanna' either. Wants to run from this. And if he could take it away this very instant - he would. One stupid time, that first morning, too drunk on her to be bothered with putting on a damn rubber. Not worth it. _Nothing is. _Nothing.

"_Sorrysorry sorry..._ " Because he is. They're both so fucked. And he's one sorry sonofabitch.

…

He looks at here over there in her cot. A large green plastic pail by the head of it. She lies there like a human cannelloni, rolled into a sheet in spite of the humid heat. Stares straight ahead of her, exhausted by the outburst. Closed off and unavailable now in the aftermath. Her forehead is a complete mess. Like a toddler who has tested and proven the theory of gravity from a considerable height. A bump, egg sized and plum coloured, skin broken, split there.

_Christ. _He's a moron of epic proportions. What the fuck has he done? They're not even together. Her. Fragile and screwed up. Him. An unreliable bastard. A baby. All in all, nothing but a cataclysm for disaster. Hesitates for a second. Stay or go. But he ain't no hero. Needs to breathe. Needs her desperation away from him for a while, needs to disconnect too. The hold she has on him, sticky and human and so all consuming it drowns him.

Needs a big old beer. Needs to sit on deck, feel the warm ocean breeze on his face, clear his mind. What the hell is he supposed to do now? She'll fight him even more now that she has that little bugger to consider. She won't be with him just because she's knocked up, he knows her that well. And he wouldn't want her like that either. Wants her whole and complete. Choosing him because she wants him. Because there is no other way.

When he edges the door open carefully, trying not to make a sound, the hinges squeak a little, rousing her. She turns her head towards him, bashful and embarrassed like someone who has binged on too much booze and made an ass out of herself. Danced on tables and been loud and brash. Only she hasn't. He has. From start to finish. That morning. No damn condom. What the hell had he been thinking?

"James… I'm sorry."

Stands there in the doorway, one foot outside already. Ready to make a run for it.

"You ain't got nothing to be sorry about Peanut. You never did. Just sleep."

Changes his mind, comes back to the bunk and leans down to give her a kiss. On the cheek. And he shouldn't, he ought to just get out. But he lingers there while she lies stiff as a plank. His nose poking at her cheekbone. He can't help the hand that reaches for her hair. Brushes it back brusquely. Repeatedly, like petting a cat, careful not to touch the swelling on her forehead. His heart just chockfull of love for her.

"One day soon, you've gotta' forgive yourself..."

The stillness around them, his words unexpected, even for him. He's hot, can smell his own sweat. The hint of sourness on her too. But her cheek feels cool beneath his nose. She doesn't touch him back. Just lies there under her sheet, letting him caress her hair.

The strands wavy and a little coarse between his fingers, as if she's washed her hair in salt water. Rubs her hairline with the heel of his hand, stroking his nose against her face. It'd be so easy to kiss her now. To have her curl up next to him, her back against his chest, her buttocks against his thighs. He'd hold her as long as she'd let him. Mine. Would place his palms flat over her stomach. Caress her skin and mold his hands over the fleshy little round belly. Hugging both of them at the same time. Doesn't even know what he wants, but his hands seem to know. Yearning to hold on to her, like this. Mine. Both of them, the clump of cells too. Only she's not ready to give it up yet.

"Seriously Freckles, you need to move the hell on…" With me, he wants to add but he can't. It has to come from her. She has to find the courage. Take the jump. He can't push her. And it's almost impossible not too. He's a man who fights for what he wants, shoves and demands. Only with her, it's no use.

Who is he to lecture her on leaving the past behind anyway? The stupid letter, he'd carried along all those years. Would probably still be carrying it if things had been different. Braces himself and gets up. No more 'good nights'. Knows they are at a crossroad. Something's got to give.

_Chose me._

…

He's too wired, can't even think of going to bed. Cleans the kitchen properly, soap and all, some funky crap that you can spray on – Mr. Muscle or something like that. Scrubs the cabinets down, top to bottom, eliminating all traces of vomit, making it smell like a freaking garden. Hopes Ni Luh won't notice and get her panties in a bundle about it. He takes his time. Aware that he ought to sleep but he feels like he's on speed, his heart beating quickly, nervously. His brain fizzling, crackling. Trying to work his mind around it all. Needs a fucking plan. A foolproof plan.

Finally celebrates the sparkling clean kitchen and a job well done with a cool beer, sitting perched on the counter breathing in the lemon smell when Captain Maf'ud comes sneaking in. Can't be a minute past four o'clock. Still dark outside. People ought to be tucked up in bed at this ungodly hour.

"Hey Cappie, you want a beer?" Dangles it by its neck.

"No." _Rod up his ass as usual._

"Can't sleep either huh? Must be the age old pal."

"I sleep fine. It's _Subuh_ , morning prayer."

"Ah, a devotee. So maybe some coffee buddy?" He jumps off the counter, reaching for the kettle.

"I make myself." Captain tries to pass him, grabbing at the kettle. Sawyer sweeps it up and away. Childish, but immensely satisfying.

"Nah, see Captain. I need you to get this show on the road. We're setting sail. I wanna' get to Bali before lunch."

He fills the kettle with water while Captain Maf'ud just stands there, arms straight at his sides as if he's a soldier in front of an officer.

"In a hurry Tuan?"

"Yep. You've got it, get that damn anchor up and get your starched ass up on the bridge. Get us on the road alright, I'll make your goddamn coffee."

"As Tuan wish."

Sawyer brings a mug up to the captain before he collects the satellite phone. Henry sounds rough when he answers. A wild night out on town perhaps. Or the fact that it's barely five thirty.

"Wow, it's really early dude… Everything alright?"

"No buddy. It ain't alright at all. I need your help."

"Sure... shoot."

"This guy, we need to do some damage control."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Fill you in on the details later, but right now I need another service. Can you get your lazy ass out of bed and track down a woman doctor."

"You want a _woman_ doctor?" Henry sounds wide awake at this.

"Nah, I mean, one of those doctors, you know, that looks at women bits, babies and crap. Someone we can trust."

"Oh dude. You knocked her up didn't you! Hugo was afraid this would happen."_ Hugo huh? _Would have reckoned Jack for the worrying kind. Feels like a wayward teen having let down the chastity club. Fuck. It ought not be such a big damn deal. They're both adults for Pete's sake. Hell, that's what grown-ups do. Make fucking babies.

"Oh was he now? Well that ain't any of your concern buddy. Just get me the best goddamn doctor you can find. One that knows a thing or two about babies and women and… losing babies."

"You mean… _losing,_ what? She wants an abortion?"

_How would he know? _It's not like she talks to him about it. But it's humiliating to let it on. How separate they are, how they no more a couple than he and Henry are right now.

"No you_ dimwit_ , she wants not to lose it. Look, just do it, track someone down. Someone who speaks English. We'll dock in Sanur by lunch, at the pier south of the Emporium. You arrange with the visit. Make it late, like nine-ish and tell him to bring all the stuff he can think of, tests, equipment, vitamins and crap... pay him a fortune. We just need it done."

"Sure. Alright."

"And hey, did you hear from them? Any news."

"No news. Sorry James."

"Figured."

"And James, I wouldn't let her get off the boat here… It's not safe. She was in the news quite a bit, back then."

…

He bends over her. She's barely awake, just enough to appreciate the smell of clean man when he presses his lips against her cheek, his hair brushing by her skin.

"Rise and shine Honey bug. You awake?"

Forcing her eyes open. So tired. Her head pounding as if she has a hell of a hangover. Wants to hook her hands around his neck, draw him down to her. On her. In her. So many nights she's made the distance between his and her cabin, two doors down. One hand on the cool metal handle before turning around. And now, it could be so easy. He's here.

"Yeah, sort of…" Last night comes back to her, embarrassing. The loss of control, the blur when it slipped through her fingers. Moments like that when she sees Wayne's face looking straight back at her. Feels his blood coursing through her veins.

"We're on our way to Bali Freckles... Already pulled up anchor." A gust of toothpaste when he opens his mouth. Makes her want to kiss him raw. Kiss it away. Wants the taste of tobacco and firestorm. Wants to forget where they are, what has happened. Wants to ignore all that is screwed-up and muddled. He is here.

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking... Last night…" _What's this? _Is he leaving?

"What..? What are you talking about?"

"You've gotta' face up to this shit." A hushed tone, the type to be used for uncomfortable truths. _He is._ He's leaving her. Something has changed, transformed, the undercurrent changing its direction. Nothing obvious, just a sense. Like a picture hung slightly askew, just enough so that you notice if you stand straight ahead of it.

"What shit… what are you saying?"

Would never have worked out. _Not boyfriend material._ He doesn't need her now, she reminds herself. None of that has changed and she still is what she is. You fill a garbage bin with garbage – you don't put something precious there. And definitely not your heart.

_But he had._

Unexpectedly, like a curve ball. Something absurdly wrong turned right. Only now, she doesn't know up from down.

"Later when we dock in Bali… "_ Oh._ This is goodbye of she's ever heard one. He sweeps the back of his fingers upwards along her neck, her throat, like a lover would, startling her. A spur of the moment kind of thing. A badly planned caress. Yanking his hand back when he realizes what he's doing.

"You stay put okay? You stay on this damn boat." Lifts his chin up, away. Looking around her cabin as if he's never been there before. "And you ain't gonna' go all wacko', smash your head against a rock or go AWOL as soon as we hit dry land for that sake. That understood?"

"I'm not an idiot James."

Rolls his eyes, underlining the fact that is exactly how he thinks of her. She takes in the sight of his arms, one on each side of her, the way muscles and skin and bone can make beauty like this. Wants to run her fingers up and down them. Wishes she weren't such a massive coward. Look at me, she thinks and perhaps he can hear it, feel it because he does. Unblinkingly nailing her down. A nerve spasm in his cheek, a nervous kink that she wants to smoothen out. Thinks that he might kiss her. Waits for it. Tries to transfer that thought too. Come. Come. But he's turned the radar off.

"Glad we're clear about that. And Freckles… you'll have a gentleman caller tonight. Just do me this last favor and treat him nice alright? No punching him in the nose or biting ears off. Let him do his thing and don't bitch about it. It's all for the best."

_What? What? _What's for the best? Opens her mouth to say something, steal back an ounce of dignity when he shoots up and she's left watching the door slamming shut behind him. Left sitting on the edge of her cot shouting at the closed cabin door:

"What gentleman caller?"

…

He walks away. Puts distance between her cabin door and himself. The slippery notion of him, her and a kid, sliding around, impossible to get a grip on. The only thing for sure; it changes everything. Takes what is complicated between them and multiplies it by a hundred.

He's startled by someone jogging up behind him. The soft sound of sneakers against the deck.

"Up bright and early Herb?" Keeps walking. Pieter catches up to him, hair wet from a morning shower. Shit eating grin in place, all set.

"So how come we're already moving? I thought we were leaving later."

"Have a schedule to keep." Get out of my fucking way.

"Hey, you look pooped Boss. She keep you up all night?" Cocks his head backwards. Must have seen him come out of her cabin.

"That's right asswipe. Now just get to it. What do you want? How much?" Walks on, takes the steps in two. Pieter huffing and puffing to keep up. Not in such prime condition after all. Guess with the weed and the dinkies that would do a man in.

"We'll talk about that later. I'll give you a number and you can prepare it."

Grips the railing of the stairs, hoisting himself up the last stretch. The sky is a sad gray today, wind picking up. And he feels tired. Tired and old. Can't even do this, can't even keep the scumbags away from her. Turns to look at the persistent creep, smiles when he sees the thin blonde hair lifting in the breeze, revealing the retiring hairline.

"I'll get your fucking money once we're in Bali and then you'll get the hell off my ship."

They stop there, just outside the main salon. Spots Ni Luh setting up breakfast inside, she gives him a little wave and a smile.

"Oh, your ship is it?" That quick lick of his front teeth, showing the underside of his tongue slug-like." Hey, that doesn't sound right. And besides I'm planning on staying right here man."

"Yeah? That what you think?' He wants something else. He leans his forearms against the railing, turning his back against the salon and Ni Luh's curious brown eyes. As if she can read lips. Pieter sidling up next to him. A sense of continuation, from last night.

"See, 'cause you are going to arrange something for me."

"What, just spit it out for fuck's sake."

And fuck! How little it takes to make it all come apart. Unraveling, a house of cards blown to pieces, and he understands now, what she'd meant. She'll always be on the run. This is what it's like. She can never relax, never let her guard down – and in effect; neither can he. That's what she'd been trying to tell him. This.

"Her." His head inclined in the vague direction of the cabins beneath.

"What do you mean _'her'_ ? What the fuck does that mean? You want me to put in a good word for you with the Danes, that what you want you little sociopath?"

"No, her. I want a date with _her_ , bro'. Your little sexy criminal down there."

His skin as if doused in ice water. Makes him shiver and he tries to control it, tries not to let on how much it affects him. He's stuck trying to negotiate with a psychopath. It's no joke. The danger real. If he'd had a gun he'd have cocked it about now. Pressed the barrel against the temple of him.

"Yeah and you can go and fuck yourself."

"Nah, I don't think so bro'. Look, it's simple, I want the money – and – a little romantic tête-à-tête with her. Or I might just wander off and end up in bad company. And I do like to talk…"

"She's pregnant you sick fucker!"

"Oh really? That's sweet man. Yours?"

"Ain't gonna' happen sleaze bag! Look, I'll get your fucking money and…"

"Nah. I want what I want. But I'm not unreasonable, I might settle for a blowjob... Then again, always wanted to get laid by a real life criminal. And also... you better throw in some weed into the deal. I'm running low."

"We ain't got a deal, you little weasel. She blows your disease ridden little shrimp and then you'll leave her alone? I ain't buying it." And he thinks perhaps it's a testament to how he has grown up, matured. That he doesn't just maim the pervert on the spot. But it's hard. Impossibly hard. Holding it together for the greater good. _For the long-term kill._

"Yes, well there you've got it. Simple as that; money, a night of passion with little Cuz, the recreational goodies and we've got ourselves a deal man."

A heroic effort. Not letting his fist shoot off. Clenched against his side in a cramp.

"It'll have to wait. The boss wants to see you," he presses out between teeth.

"What boss?"

"Yeah, you're really something. _Your _fucking boss; the big Kahuna, Henry. Wants to see you for some unimaginable reason."

"Maybe a promotion? You put in a good word for me huh, Herb?"

"Hardly."

"But you will. You'll tell Henry what a gem I am, and that I deserve a decently padded pay check. And I wanna' be in charge. I wanna' be the boss on this fucking ship."

"Take it up with Henry. Ain't got nothing to do with me." Greedy bastard, eyes glittering, revelling in the sudden power. Can interest him in a nice deep sea grave perhaps? A block of cement around his sick feet.

"Think it does. And the weed… get me some fine Acehnese Ganja, none of that cheap tourist shite."

He leans his head sideways against Sawyer's. Can smell some cheap-ass cologne on him. He'll get weed alright. Will buy him a truckload so that he can smoke himself to death.

"So tell Ethel to expect me tonight bro. And she might wanna' prune a bit. I don't like hairy bitches." Sucking on his teeth. Yeah, damn it. Sawyer tries to refrain from hyperventilating. No wonder the asshole wears fakes. Someone must have beaten the entire set out of that foul mouth a long time ago.

_Keep it together. _Just a little longer. This close to strangling the evil freak. His hands in a white-knuckled clutch around the railing.

"So I wonder what it's like to fuck a pregnant chick, hey? Heard they get really wild man…" Pieter throws over his shoulder. Strutting off, looking indestructible, floating high on his newfound power.

Watches the back of him. And it takes all he's got not to hurdle himself on the bastard. Wouldn't be conducive to his plan. In fact, it might ruin everything. But it's sour. His mouth like it's been rinsed in vinegar.

A knock on his shoulder. Lotte standing there when he turns around.

"What was that about Herb? Is Ethel preggers?"

_Great._ Just what he needs. A busty blonde Dane butting into his business.

"Eavesdropping ain't nice Sweetheart." Fakes a smile, ain't her fault he's being fucked with by some pothead.

She's wearing a t-shirt today. Probably the first time he's seen her in anything else than those bikini tops. As far as he can tell she isn't wearing anything underneath though. Picks a smoke from his pack. Lights it up but changes his mind and flicks it over the railing.

"Who's the daddy?" She is a persistent one. Should have been more careful. Doesn't have the energy to deal with a boat full of imbeciles as well.

"Some useless asshole she's better off without. What's it to you Honey?"

"And you're setting her up with Pieter… why?"

Hooks his arm through hers, pretending to be cool as a cucumber.

"I'm a romantic Darling. Come on, let's get some bacon."

…

He eats breakfast with the guests; Kate is predictably nowhere to be seen. It's as well; he's in no shape to be around her.

Maybe it's the outrageous notion of him telling her to move on. Maybe it's his own guilt. Maybe it's Pieter and his hissing threats in his ear. What's for certain is that something crawls its way out of the darkness. A muddle of abstract thoughts, a stew of crap bubbling up. All the things he's done in his life. The innocent man he shot point blank at a shrimp stand. The women he cheated, crushed, stole from. Lives he ruined, many of them. That little girl. Had betrayed her like Judas. Had denied the evidence presented. Turned away from the obvious truth, spelled out in facial lines and dimples. And Kate. How he's failed her too. Repeatedly. Is failing her right now.

He doesn't believe in shit like Karma, or maybe that's exactly what he does. But this morning, a crooked kind of logic sneaks inside and kicks down all resistance. Needs to move on too. Needs to write a big fat check to the entire fucking cosmos. He's got a hell of a debt on his shoulders.

Helps Ni Luh clear up after those rich slobs. Stacking dirty dishes and picking up coffee cups on a tray.

"Great believer in Karma Ni Luh?"

She looks up from what she's doing. Wrapping the cheeses and the cold cuts in cling wrap.

"Yes."

"How so?"

"I believe you can weigh up something bad by doing something good."

No hesitation, as if this is a perfectly normal question to ask someone over the breakfast buffet.

"I ain't so sure Lulu. Who keeps tabs on it all then you reckon? God? Your accountant?"

She bustles by him. A whiff of freshly baked bread from her, as if she's a walking, talking oven. 'Mama', he thinks and he doesn't even know where that fucked-up fragment of a thought comes from. The baking, corn bread. She hadn't had to do those things. Had enough money to employ help, still. He remembers sitting perched on the kitchen counter, watching her hands working the dough. White flecks, flour dusting her skin up to her elbows. Her voice, singing – a tune irreversibly lost in the past. Hates how he can't remember. Can't quite visualize her face or her voice. The only thing he knows, how her hand would feel on his face. How he would feel, protected. Loved. Like something precious. Hers.

"You're taking care of your cousin, that's a start. That's something good."

_Tired. _He's so fucking tired. Pieter, Kate, last night. Wants to lay his head down on Ni Luh's plump lap and sleep. Have someone take care of him for a change.

"Yeah… hell, I don't know. It's wearing me down to the ground," he says, because it does. "That make me an asshole?"

She shrugs; she must have heard worse things. If she only knew what sort of a shit he is. Someone who can aim a gun at another person's head. Someone who can grind his knuckles into mincemeat on another man's face. Someone who can maul down woman after woman, no looking back. No regrets. Though that's not true. He's got plenty.

"No. It makes you human."

"I'm at a dead end Lulu-girl. What the heck does Karma say about that _huh_ ?"

She looks up at him. The round cinnamon brown cheeks and the finely drawn eyebrows. She has a nose that is so small it looks like it's been stolen from a child, but the eyes, beautiful, frighteningly sharp. Looking into him as if he's a microscope and she a scientist about to make a breakthrough discovery.

"She's… Is she pregnant?"

Closes his eyes. Squeezes them shut for an instant, and it doesn't make it any easier. The worst thing that could have happened. He doesn't think she is strong enough. Isn't sure he is either. He can't imagine it, can't see it. Feels a tragedy creeping up on them, hoisting itself forward, closer and closer.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"What can I do for you Herbert?"

He exhales. He needs another set of hands for his plan to work. Maybe he can trust her. He doesn't know yet, but right now he hasn't got plenty to pick from and maybe she isn't the worst choice. Something about her, standing there, her hands on her hips like Wonder Woman, ready to take charge. And he could need someone like that. Someone who seems to have both feet on the ground, who knows what the heck she's doing, because he sure as hell doesn't. Uses the old crinkled smile, dimpled charm, hoping she'll fall for it, all the while suspecting that she's probably too smart, too jaded to buy into it.

"I need a favor. And you're my go-to girl Lulu."

He can do fuck all for Kate, doesn't even know where to begin. But he can try to keep her safe, keep the other bad wolves at bay. That he can do. Old dog that he is.

…

They're docked in Sanur. Just a stroll down from the Emporium. The weather is lousy. Hard rain, hitting the ship. The sky like lead, heavy and low, pressing down on them, giving her a headache. They have lunch in the main saloon. She sits facing the pier, the beach-walk beyond and a nostalgia grips her, so strong she feels like crying in her tom yam soup. They're all there, chatting animatedly. The Muellers trying to discuss the latest Nobel price literature nominee with a pair of uptight Danish sisters.

"We're not Swedish," Britt snaps. Lotte doesn't even bother getting involved, slurps her soup like a sulky toddler. Turns towards Kate who has the misfortune to sit on her side of the long table.

"Where is Herb?" Demanding, as if Kate has hidden away a favorite toy.

Kate shrugs. God knows, off doing something useful like drinking beer under the tarp of his favorite beach bar perhaps. Has the nerve to tell her to stay on the boat, leaving her in charge of this circus. Not hungry. The soup too spicy, the company too annoying. Pieter is missing as well, Mario sitting quietly on his end of the table, useless in this context. He does nothing to help her keep the guests happy.

So, Sawyer and Pieter. She can picture the two of them. Drinking and trying to out-cool one another.

"Hey, I was talking!" Shaken from her thoughts by Lotte elbowing her in the ribs. Rude. Little rich girl, used to the attention,

"Sorry, you were saying…?"

"You okay with 'that'?" Nods towards her middle, somewhat vague.

"You mean the soup?" Wipes her mouth with her napkin. Wants to go and lie down. The wind is strong today, rain whipping against the salon windows. The waves making her nauseous. "It's a bit spicy."

"Oh yeah… right. I guess, in your _condition_ ."

"What condition?"

Leans in closer, as if they are friends sharing a secret. A hand shielding her mouth.

"You know. The _'baby'_ ."

"What baby?"

"Oh drop it, I know everything. So the father…? He's not around huh?"

"What father?"

"Well Herbie said… I heard him talk about it, earlier."

"What did Herbert say now?" He talked. To her about it, to Barbie. Something so deeply private, something so off limits and he drags it all out in the open. On display for the whole world as if it were juicy gossip and not the end of the world. As if it were all on her shoulders, no skin off his nose.

"Said, you're better off without him."

"It's starting to look like that."

"But you're getting right back on that horse huh?"

"What horse?" It's getting ridiculous. Like speaking in riddles, Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter, this is what it must feel like.

"Well, I heard Herb arranging a date for you, with Pieter tonight. You like him?"

Gentleman caller? Pieter? Wants to throw up now. Is this Sawyer losing his cool. Running from it all.

"Yeah sure." What's he playing at? Trying to push her together with somebody else.

"Be careful though. It didn't sound… well, it didn't sound… nice."

"What didn't sound nice?"

"Well… Pieter said he wanted to.. You know; do it with a pregnant chick. Just wanted you to know… Some guys are into weird stuff."

"Aren't they just?" He'd said that. To Sawyer. And he was left standing. Left alive. Didn't protect her, didn't throw Pieter over board. It doesn't make sense. It turns her whole world upside down. He did nothing. "And you overheard this… when?"

"This morning."

"And Herb seemed alright with it?" Didn't beat Pieter into a pulp?

"Yeah sure. Like usual, cool. And then we had breakfast together." A little smug giggle. Yeah that's right. She can have him! Asshole. "Hey, what happened to your face?"

"Walked into a door," she mutters. Fuck him. Better off without him indeed. He must have freaked, must have decided to cut her off. Pimping her out and spreading her secret to the entire ship. Wants to cry, but wants to kill him more.

She'd trusted him, always.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Except if he's scared out of his mind about, well about last night. She is too. And now, it seems, now she's alone with it.

Nothing new about that.

…

She's hiding out. Can't sit through another dinner with them all. Drops a half-assed excuse, saying she's not feeling well, which isn't a long stretch in any case. Has a bucket near her bed all of the time lately. A green plastic monster she fears and needs at the same time. Familiar like an old enemy. The times when she finds her face hovering over it, staring down at its pea green bottom. Wishing it away, wishing it all away - it doesn't help. That green bucket. More real than anything else.

Her jeans that don't button up anymore, she covers the little gap with a large t-shirt. Contrary to the evidence, she isn't a complete imbecile. Knows what she knows. But it's one thing to watch how her own body changes; it's another to dare define what it means. Doesn't.

Can't. And if she doesn't think the words, it isn't true. It isn't happening. And she reasons that she can't be insane, because if she were, she wouldn't be aware of it in the first place.

A timid knock on the door. Just from the careful tok-tok-tok she knows, it isn't him.

"Ni Luh? You're not… not having dinner with the others?"

"Just checking on you. Are you okay? The swelling seems to be going down."

"Yeah." She forces herself to smile, touching her forehead. That stupid story of walking into a door. Doesn't think anyone buys it but it doesn't matter much. It wears her out, pretending. Can feel how the fakeness almost makes her muscles cramp." Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired, is all. How are the guests?"

"Behaving… You want some company?"

No. Absolutely not! Wants to sneak down the stern, get the dinghy out in the water. Wants to escape, run, far from here. That's all she wants. And where is he? Why is he not back yet? The admonition not to get off the ship. Not just caution. Something not right about it all.

"It's okay really Ni Luh. I'm fine."

And Ni Luh doesn't give a hoot whether she's welcome or not. The kind of person who owns a room. Her confidence, unquestionable, not something she even reflects upon. Kate can tell. Sits down on the bed next to her. Moves the bucket away slightly by pushing it with her sandal-clad foot. A surprisingly dainty little foot emerging from the sturdy ankles. As if stolen from another body, an elegant little dancer who now walks on stout, duck-like feet.

"You seem lonely." It's so simple, and it makes her skin crawl. Doesn't want to share. Doesn't want anyone peaking in behind the wall. Wants to set the guard dogs on her but Ni Luh is so kind, so sweet, she just doesn't have the heart to be snappy with her.

"No, really. I'm fine alone."

"No I meant, you seem lonely, really lonely. All of the time."

That one bores into her like a poisonous arrow, works its way deep into her core. That's who she is. Lonely. Always a little off, somewhat out of kilter. Always alone. Isolated by who she is. Nothing she can do about it. Can surround herself with a hundred people, she'll always feel separated, as if not entirely part of them. A gene missing, an instruction she did not receive.

"You like your cousin, don't you?"

"What? Yeah of course I like him." What's not to like? Lying, conning, conniving son of a bitch. Will steal your heart like that with his soft nimble fingers, his pecan toffee pie voice and the lips. Lethal, deft and precise like a rattlesnake's strike.

"No I mean, you really like him. I can't help noticing. You look so lonely, when you're watching him."

Too fast, too intimate. Wants the woman out of her cabin. Now. Doesn't like the way she sees right through her. Doesn't like the fact that she's spent a second thinking of her, observing her. And her pathetic longing for him.

"It's not like that."

"We're the same Ethel… you and me." Highly doubts that. Unless she has blown up a man, stolen someone else's baby and accidentally killed her first love. Her English freaks her out. Perfect, precise and far too advanced to come from a person who has never lived abroad. Must be a clever woman, has never reflected upon this before. But it's bizarre, her accent; a hint of old Britain. The grammar nearly faultless.

"How come your English is so good Ni Luh?" Deflecting, sparring, her own mode of attack.

"British man. Took me in after I left my village. After I was thrown out."

"Oh, you worked for him?" Senses a tragedy. Thrown out. But the way she says it. Her face calm and her chin held high. Proud, like nothing can touch her. Kate finds herself envying her intensely. She wants some of that, whatever it is.

"Yes you can say that. It was an exchange. Young girl for food and a home. A little cooking a little affection for English lessons. Yes I guess it was a sort of work arrangement."

She hadn't asked for that much information. Cheeks heating up in shame on this stranger's behalf. 'We're more alike than you think.' How can she know? Distressing to think that she might give it away so easily. Her secret. Like a bad odour in the room that only the most astute pick up on.

"He was old. But kind, in his own way. Anyway… no man in my village would have married me."

"Why?"

"Spoiled. They all knew. Ruined."

"Oh..." Knows everything about being ruined. Doesn't want to hear more. Enough. Needs this like she needs a big pus-filled abscess.

"Developed too quickly, my own fault, attracted the wrong kind of attention. Not someone you marry." But there is something odd about this woman that makes her doubt her story. She doesn't look right. Her eyes, not downcast. "No one would have wanted me for daughter in law."

The nausea when she remembers all those boys, all of those men. How she'd followed them, letting them lead her, take her. Some room, some hotel, the backseat of someone's car. She had let them, because she had had this absurd notion that perhaps there was some kind of balance to be found. Someone who could fill her up again. Ni Luh's large padded hands gripping her knee, patting it in a way that makes her want to cry. She pushes herself up from the cot with a heavy sigh.

"Okay, I'll leave you to it then. But I'm here… if you need something. Nobody should be that lonely."

Yeah, yeah. Not likely.

"Thanks Ni Luh. But I'm alright." Not lonely. It's normal. Everyone is alone, it's a myth that someone can take that away and she sure doesn't believe in it.

"Oh and ginger…" she says in the doorway. She says it as if it's her name. Ginger.

"What?"

"Ginger. It helps… you know against…" Makes a rather rude sign, two fingers against her open mouth. As if she's making herself sick. "I'll get you some. It'll soon pass anyway."

Doesn't answer. Wants to hurl something against the door. Won't think about it. Won't. Doesn't want to connect, doesn't need sympathy. And right now, the only person who could make her feel a little less alone, a tiny bit less isolated, he simply isn't here.

Ni Luh returns ten minutes later, softly edging the door open. Without knocking this time. Sets down a steaming hot glass of amber tinted liquid, a slice of lime floating in it. The fragrance spreading hotly through the cabin. Lime and ginger. Leaves again without a word, just a soft you-and-me sort of smile. Doesn't need it. Doesn't need her compassion. Doesn't need this sisterhood of soiled childhoods. But the tea, the spicy sharpness of the ginger. It burns her throat but it takes the edge of the nausea a little. Just a little.

She lies there on the bed. Eyes closed. Knows she'll have to open them soon. Has to look this problem in the eyes, stare it down just like with Ni Luh, needs to own it. Deal with it.

But not yet. Not just yet.

Hears the door opening again. Crap, what is it with people tonight? Can't leave her in peace for just one lousy evening? Will get up and lock the door. Later, when she has the energy.

"Ethel…"

Pieter. Smiling, looking almost angelic the way the over light hits him. That little boy's haircut. Straight blond hair, parted carelessly in the middle. A plastic bag in his hand, held out like an offering.

"Herb told you I was coming, right?"

Gentleman caller, my ass, she thinks. Gets up from the cot, too vulnerable lying there. Accidentally knocking over the empty glass. It doesn't break, just rolls across the floor, almost all the way to his feet.

"What do you want Pieter?" She gets up standing, wants to get closer to the cabin door. Doesn't like this. The intrusion.

"Thought you might want some food. Since you didn't come up for dinner." Dangles the plastic bag in front of him. Raised eyebrows in a way he probably thinks looks cute.

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry."

He walks by her. Sets the bag down on the floor and sits on her cot.

"What do you want?" Doesn't like the way he just sits there, smiling as if he's in on a secret and she isn't.

"I take it Herb didn't fill you in on our little arrangement?" Grins at her looking so deliberately innocent, her inner alarm goes off somewhere deep within. It's not alright. This.

"What arrangement?" she asks quietly.

"You know, you and me… here."

You and me? Going to kill Sawyer when she sees him. Trying to make her move on, like this? Setting her up with some random guy. Is he insane?

"No he didn't. Maybe I should go find him so he can give me all the details of your 'little arrangement'. Where is he?"

"No idea. Sent me back to the boat. Said he has some things to clear up. So Ethel, looks like it's just me and you."

"Wonderful."

The nerve of him. He lies down on her bed, shoes still on, bringing up a little metal box that he places carefully on his stomach. Wearing a brown shirt, carelessly buttoned, showing off half his chest. And it's one thing for Sawyer to walk around like that, sleazy as hell on this guy. Thinks he is really something. He's just a boy, she tries to assure herself. Just a kid trying to get lucky. Though he's probably her age, at least. The haircut makes it hard to tell.

"Wanna' smoke? Might take the edge off your nerves."

Shakes her head. What's wrong with him? Pieter shrugging, a little nervous laughter, fake for sure.

"No, no right. Of course. Can't because of the little critter."

"You gonna' leave or do I have to kick you out buddy?"

"I'll leave. As soon as I get what I want. A little loving, shouldn't be so hard. Herb tells me you're a hot one."

Oh, does he now? A little nagging doubt at the back of her mind. He wouldn't. Locker room talk. Is he like that? But the way things have been lately. Last night. He hadn't stayed with her, this morning, distant. It doesn't matter now anyway, only needs this scumbag out of here.

"Not in this life. Get the hell out!" Tries to sound tough. Isn't scared. Yet.

She fumbles behind her back for the handle, pressing it down and it's stuck. Fingers trawling the lock. Keys gone. Stretches a hand out, towards him, demanding. Tries to prevent it from shaking.

"Give me the keys."

"Soon as you fulfill your end of the bargain. Come here. It's not a big deal, just a little mouth and we're set. You've got a pretty mouth…"

"That's the deal you made with Sa… with Herb? A blowjob. For what? What does he get?" Feels sick now. Not that she hasn't done a whole lot of disgusting things to get what she wants. She has and she is woman enough to admit to it. Slept with that creep, Jason, for months just to get him to help her with the bank job. But this – not being in control - not her deal. As if she's a morsel to be dished out.

"Yeah, why don't you ask him Ethel? Since you are so close and all." Twirls a joint around between his fingers. "Ha, he didn't even tell you did he?"

Conversation over. He can't hurt her. She'll take him down. Will crush him.

Can only hurt you if you love them. Wayne. Had loved him, worshipped him in the beginning. Like having their own little exclusive club. He'd been funny, he'd talked to her like a grown-up. Their own private jokes. Him and her against her mother. And then somewhere along the line, it had changed. The private jokes had become; schh. It's between you and me. You trust me right? My special girl. She'd walked right into that one. Hadn't even realized she was trapped at first. Like a stupid dull animal. Enjoying the way he took care of her, being his pet. Feeling special. Not understanding until much later that she was stuck. Unable to move backwards unable to get away.

But this. He's just a snooty asshole, thinks he can bullshit his way around. She'll call his bluff. He's not as tough as he's making out.

"Okay buddy. You want this, you gonna' have to take it." Almost adds; make my day. Actually looking forward to the physical confrontation. The taking charge. She's no victim. He's got no idea who he's messing with.

"Sure. That's the way you wanna' play it." He's up from the bed and all of the sudden the cabin seems smaller, he seems larger and she doesn't seem to have anything. "Hey, what happened to your face? Herb smack you around like the little bitch you are?"

Dancing around like two boxers in a ring. Doesn't feel so confident now. Her fear, a faithful old friend. The possessive octopus, slippery and cold – hugging her hard like a desperate lover, trying to sneak a tentacle around her throat.

Looks around, her hair whipping against her face. And he follows her every move, sure of himself. He's got all the power, she none. A weapon, anything. Should have never gotten this comfortable. The knife she'd used to keep under her pillow back at the house in Sanur. Could really need it now. She creeps backwards, edging her way close to the wall, and they circle each other like two animals in a cage. Has her eyes on his balls. She'll take him out, make so that he can never get it up again. He doesn't know who he's playing with. Waiting for him to make a move so that she can take him down. Crush that ugly nose of his, gorge out his eyes.

A knock on the door that has them both paralyzed.

"Sorry, it's me again." The muffled sound of her voice, has her trying to swim up to the surface, so far down. Survival and defense all that matters.

"It's okay Ni Luh." Though it isn't, not at all. Nods to Pieter, mouthing; the key, the damned key. "What is it?"

"The doctor is here. Can he bring in his equipment? He needs to set it up for the examination."

Turns her head so fast she makes herself dizzy. Doctor. No.

"What doctor?"

"I don't know… Mr. Herbert sent for him. Could you please open."

The handle being pulled down. Pieter fishes the key up form his pocket and hands it to her. Smug now, he finds himself quickly.

"Later then…" he whispers. Yeah right. He's getting off this ship tomorrow if she has to throw him over board. Unlocks the door and he slinks out, not even acknowledging Ni Luh there.

"Mr. Pieter? You two friends?"

"I didn't exactly invite him."

"You be careful alright. I don't like that man."

And she sits there on her cot. Like a sheep on the way to the slaughter house, watching as it's all set up, cables connected, the screen set down on her night shelf, precariously perched on it's edge. Hopes it will fall and shatter against the hardwood floor. Hates him. For making her do this. Alone.

The doctor is dainty and trim. Doctor Yunus. Speaks English in a funny high-spirited way. Slightly hyper and too chipper for her taste. Actually would prefer to fight it out with Pieter than do this.

"So Mrs. James…" As if he's about to offer her a ride in a hot-air balloon.

"Miss."

"Miss James, other losses, yes?"

"Yes." She keeps her eyes on her lap and holds up her fingers. Doesn't want to hear the numbers out loud. So and so many weeks, so and so many days, so and so many holes torn up in her. It's just numbers. Can't hurt her. Pretends it's not about her. Like a stupid film sequence. Some silly girl that has gotten herself in trouble. The shame of it. A body that doesn't work, a sort of justice for all of the bad things she's done. Doesn't deserve a kid. It's pretty straightforward.

"And how far along do you think you are Ms. James? How many weeks?"

She shrugs, because she can't put up enough fingers for that count, would have to use her toes. And she doesn't want to think of it, compare with the others she's lost. Numbers. They shred her, slice her up. But as bad as the numbers are, it's the machine she fears the most. Worse than the green bucket. An old enemy, they are intimately acquainted. Sorry, no heartbeat. Maybe it was for the best.

The gooey jelly stuff squirted on her belly. Cold. Like Kryptonite. The strength, the little she has, seeping out of her. Turns her face towards the wall. Doesn't want to see it. It can't hurt you if you don't' let it. Sorry, no heartbeat. Doesn't matter. She never let herself hope in the first place. Never let herself feel. Doesn't matter. It doesn't exist.

"There we are." Oh damn him for the chirpy attitude. Hates him then, though she doesn't even know him and none of this is his fault. The heartbeat, you idiot! Say it now, and be done with it. No heartbeat. No heartbeat. So sorry Miss, nothing we can do. Just do it. She's been through it all before.

Then the sound is turned on; a steady pulsating rhythm, chuff-chuff-chuff flooding the cabin and she refuses to let it in because she knows it has the power to shatter her. Doesn't turn her head to look either. Can't stand seeing it. But it's there. For now.

A piece of him. Something good. Life.

The doctor takes her blood, several vials for lab-work. And she doesn't flinch. It's nothing, the physical. Nothing. Can breathe now, for a little while. Maybe not tomorrow, but right now. It's alive.

"I don't know for sure yet," the doctor says collecting his things, putting them down in his bag again. "But before we get the answers we'll start you on some medication."

She shrugs. Aware that she must seem rude but she can't take it in. The word medicine, as if there is a hope in hell that this might end well. She isn't used to good news. Has never had an ultrasound and walked away from it with something alive inside of her. It's a first and she doesn't know how to deal. Misses him, he'd had said something stupid, and why isn't he here? Hates him for putting her through this, alone. As if this is her little problem, has nothing to do with him. The unfairness of it all. It shouldn't surprise her, she isn't someone who ever thought the universe fair and just. Still. It's infuriating. An easier emotion than hope.

He has a bunch of little bottles in an icebox, the kind you might use for picnics. Gives her a few packs of syringes and shows her how to use them.

"It's blood thinners, heparin. Twice a day, will keep the placenta from clotting if that's your problem. If it isn't we'll stop once you have your results. But considering the late losses… "

Doesn't listen to the rest. Doesn't want to hear any of it. He gives her a few strips of little pills writes her a prescription too for a refill. Aspirin, kiddy sized. Ought to do something with the blood too. She's hardly listening. Hope, he's doling it out together with the meds he stacks on her shelf.

"Keep the heparin in the fridge, and make sure you don't forget. Every twelve hours. You understand Ms. James?"

"Yes." Perfectly. Shot; heartbeat, no shot; dead baby, simple as that. Crystal clear.

Hope. No, you're not welcome here. She doesn't want it. Kicks it away, but it has a tendency of winding itself back in. Comes creeping right back with its puppy eyes and soft downy fur. Let me in. It'll be okay this time.

"But it's a little late for this sort of therapy. You should have been on meds from the start. No guarantees at this stage…" Just like that, hope snatched back, chain around its neck yanked back viciously. Lock it into the doghouse. She wants nothing to do with it. Hope and her. They don't get along, never did.

"Okay," she says though nothing is. Where is he? He ought to be here. Bastard, making her go through this alone. He sets it up and flies the coop. Probably thinks he has pulled his straw to the stack now. Done his bit.

"You just have to pray Miss, trust in God..."

Wants to throw something heavy at him. Even though he is quite alright, the kind she could deal with, except for this last line. Pray. Bullshit. When has that ever helped anyone? Ever.

And Kate's God is a particularly fickle god.

He's capricious and unreliable and most of all; he plays rough when you're down. Little sharp kicks in the underbelly when you're at your weakest.

She hasn't prayed since she was eleven, hiding under her double blankets trying to ignore the steady thuds against her bedroom wall. Mumbling into the sheets, trying to block out that sound, obscene, like someone snapping a wet towel against skin, her mother's stifled wailing. The pathetic powerlessness of it all. Had prayed for a flash of lightning to strike down on their house. Stop it. Stop it. And if she'd gotten what she'd prayed for ten years down the line, it had only been because she'd stopped waiting for God and turned the valve to the propane tank herself. Flicked the lighter.

Figures that if prayers didn't help then, it sure as hell isn't going to help now.

…

It's that hour, that minute when the sun dips into the sea, bloody oranges and violent purples, gaudy and lurid. He hates it, how the light hits the open beach bar sideways, casting long jittery shadows across the stone floor. Hates that he can't make him out clearly where he sits by the bar, leaning an elbow on it, his chin cradled in his hand.

Last time he'd seen this man, he'd wanted to kill him. Had almost.

The eyes, inky black lashes and the golden brown almost orange in the anguished rays of the dying sun. The way they hit him straight in the face. The alarm, the fear that he put there. Wobbles on the chair and gets off it almost falling to the floor. Before he's got the time to scoot, Sawyer's hand sweeps forward, grabs hold of him. Barely catching his arm. Tall and lean, but not very strong. A man who runs.

Sawyer bundles him out around the corner from the bar, slamming him up against a cement wall, garbage bins lining, tipping over, clanking against the cement foundation. The rats scuttling away, and a stench of rotting food, sweet and sickening. Hands around his neck, thumbs against the hollow of his throat, pressing.

"What do you want!"

"Cool it, cool it. I ain't gonna' hurt you."

Danan snorts, a little sniffle as if he'll believe it when he sees it. Glossy brown hair falling across his face. Eyes hard. Can barely look at him. This. He did this. He and the darkness he carries with him. Covers his guilt with greasy, smug bullshit.

"You wanna' earn a buck?" It's surreal, standing here with a good strong stranglehold on the man, breathing shallowly as if after a long sprint - offering him a goddamn job. This time he actually laughs. Scoffing, superior snigger that fits badly with the vulnerable position he's in.

"You want me to work? For you? Fuck you asshole! Fuck! You!" Spit spraying against his face. Wants to wipe it off but can't let go.

Danan twists, a sudden, knee bend, shooting upwards, almost slipping out of Sawyer's grip. Almost. He shoves his chest up against him. His underarm thrust under Danan's chin. His own knee pulled up in defense. Thigh angled to protect his balls.

"Fuck. Calm down. It… It's for her."

He stops struggling. Panting, gasping.

"Who?"

"It's for her. She's in trouble."

"Are you out of your mind? What makes you think I want to help you?"

"I don't. Just a hunch."

"Yeah? Can you let the fuck up?"

He lets his arms fall to the sides. Expects to see Danan scamper off into the approaching evening like one of those dog-sized rats. The beautiful man, his nose, you can tell it's not the same. The symmetry gone, a bump that wasn't there before. Makes him look harder, more masculine. The jaw, everything is off. A scar running, splitting his eyebrow in two. Knows he must be sporting a few fake teeth. A flash of his own knuckles, beating them bloody on his teeth. Feels sick.

He did this.

He broke perfection. A sadness that has nothing to do with compassion. Has everything to do with his own destructiveness. His father's legacy. A man who can kill the mother of his child. Just like that.

Danan, pulls the edge of his shirt, straightening the collar. One of those thick expensive cotton shirts. A hand over his hair, smoothening it down, trying to steal back some dignity. Almost coyly. Seems something Kate might have done. Eyes amber colored and intense on him. Cat eyes. Makes Sawyer want to look away but unable to break the contact.

"Say you're sorry." Grumpy but he does grumpy well. Jaw sharp like an old Hollywood actor. "And buy me a drink."

"What? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No. You want to ask me a favor. Least you can do is apologize and buy me a drink."

Sheepish now. Hell. He'd almost killed the guy. Hadn't spent much time worrying about it either. Not after that night. Not a second spent on regret beyond that. Now he wants to sit here and sip girly drinks in the sunset. Some kind of mind-game, but he doesn't hold the triumph card here. He's prepared to beg if he has to.

"Sure thing buddy." Walks ahead out of the shadows, around the corner of the beach bar, about to tell him not to expect any funny business when he hears behind him.

"Don't flatter yourself cowboy. You're not my type anyway." Sleek and underhanded. A snap higher in the food chain, it can't be denied.

"Yeah, yeah, not into the whole over-the-hill thing, I remember..."

"Yeah that too, but it's more the bone-crushing tendencies that puts me off."

"So…what's your poison buddy-boy?"

"Oh, I'll have a vodka." Looks around the bar as if he's worried someone will see him here with Sawyer. Some jealous boyfriend skulking around perhaps.

"Yeah? No Apple Martini's, Mojito's or umbrella drinks?"

"Glad to hear you are completely void of prejudice. Vodka will be fine. Cold, no ice. But you go ahead, have a Mojito."

He orders two vodka's at the bar, one with ice and the other without, while Danan takes a seat at one of the rickety tables at the back of the locale. The bartender eyes him apprehensively, something that sounds like 'American dog' wheezed under breath when he sets the glasses down with a bang on the bar counter. Sawyer slaps a few crumpled notes on the bar, he'll be damned if he's going to leave the sonofabitch a tip.

"I'm still waiting. Where's that apology?" Danan draws a fingertip along the edge of the glass. Around and around as if he's trying to make music. Looks like a well practiced seduction trick, something he does as part of his game. Sawyer watches, borderline fascinated. Got to remember that one. Something that makes you think of sex. And he must be good at what he does, this freak, because Sawyer has never found another man mildly sensual. But this. Yeah, he's good. Should forget all this bullshit and team up. They could rack up a fortune.

"Well, fuck it. What do you want? A goddamn hug?"

That one actually earns him a crooked smile. Vaguely entertained, as if he's royalty and Sawyer an amusing peasant. Comical in his wooden clogs and with his boorish clumsiness.

"So, you've got five minutes while I down my drink." Stops fingering his drink and takes a swig instead. "And I'm only giving you the time of the day because you have me mildly intrigued. So start talking."

"I need a problem to go away." Like talking to the Godfather. Humiliating.

"Don't see how that's my problem."

"I need you, well… I need Dewi, and your contacts."

"Dewi and I don't work together anymore. Not since… you know."

"Yeah well, I think this guy will require a little bait, Dewi would be great but anyone else might do too. "

"So… this problem? Has to do with her?"

"Yep."

"What makes you think I'd help you? The only thing I want right now is to knock your teeth out."

"See, I don't believe that. I think you'll do it."

"And why so optimistic cowboy?"

"You care for her."

"You think?" Sneers, taking a large mouthful from his glass. For being a sissy boy he sure seems to drink like a man. "I tricked her, helped Widmore's men kidnap the kid and her friend. You think I care!"

Widmore. If he's indeed his father, the pathetic asshole has been screwed royally too. Wants to ask about it, but he has more important things to think of than tracking the genealogy of Widmore's wild-oats across Asia.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think you do. And if not, there is always the money." Swirls his glass, clinking ice against the rim.

Ah. Pleased as punch over the way Danan's eyes become a tad rounder, drawing in his breath. Hah, got his attention now. Short on cash it would seem. Daddy not filling up the old bank account now that he's gotten what he wanted.

"You've got some nerve coming here, asking me to help you." Flicks the shiny chestnut brown hair back. He's got some moves, the slick bastard.

"I ain't asking for me. I'm asking you to help her."

"What sort of trouble is she in?"

"This guy. Recognized her from…"

"And now he wants money. Why don't you just pay him off?" Yeah, genius. Why didn't he think of that?

"And then what… he'd be back for more two weeks later. She'd never be safe."

"I don't know why you think I'd care either way. She was just a job to me. That's all. You know how it is. You're a professional too."

Gonna' have to guilt trip him into this. Grappling for straws now, he's got to win Danan over. It has to be quick and flawless. No time to set up other contacts. And he knows Danan must have a finger in with the police, some old buddy or boyfriend, he's sure of it. Henry does too but not for the sort of thing he wants to get on the road. What's more, Danan can get the props, he doubts Henry would know where to start with that.

"That kid. It was like her own. You let them steal her goddamn kid."

"Now you care? I seem to remember that you weren't exactly concerned about her happiness back then. Came back to mess with her… screw with her mind. She was so wound up about you."

"She's pregnant." Look how easy it's becoming. To say it. It doesn't mean he can take it in. But he can say it. As if it has absolutely zilch to do with him.

"You don't say? How did that happen? Yours?"

"Yeah, mine smartass." Gulp. His. And. Hers. Still doesn't make her - his.

'Wow, yours? Then she really is in trouble. Poor little thing, she has a pitiful taste in men." That little playful smile, flirty. Makes him want to fidget, move his chair away a little. Mostly because Danan has a valid fucking point. She does have a shitty taste in men. Proof in point.

"Cut the drama queen stuff. So… you'll do it or not? " Pushes his own hair back, aware of how it looks like he's copying the pretty boy's moves.

Danan picks his cigarette pack up from his breast pocket. Stretches it over the table, offering him one. A whiff of cloves and spices that makes him want to throw himself over the entire pack. Could really need a smoke now.

"Nah. Thanks. I've quit," he says instead, feigning disinterest.

"You have huh? When?" Lights up his own and Sawyer can't help following the movement, graceful and slow, hand to mouth, between index and middle finger. Elegant as hell. The tricks he could pull if he'd had half of that poise. Shit. The type of women he'd been able to pull. A whole other class. The obscenely rich trust-fund, socialite type. But that's all in the past, for now.

"Now. I just quit alright!" Muttering, embarrassed though he can't explain why. "Ain't something I fucking have to explain to every damn loser who asks."

"Oh I see! You're about to be a daddy, that's what it is. You're straightening out for the little one. How very suburban."

"Fuck off."

Danan laughing to himself. Oh, he's loving this, the sudden advantage. The sense of power. Sawyer like putty in his hands so to say. It seems to be the theme of the day, the second asshole he's had to brown-nose today. Danan cuts out the sniggering abruptly. Elbows on the table as he leans forward, causing it to tilt a little. Sawyer has to weight it up by placing his own hands on the table top, steadying it.

"I'm not offing anyone." Eyes like a tiger, or hell, he doesn't know. The orange tones of his irises unsettles him. "I don't do that sort of things. That's your area I guess."

"Easy buddy, I ain't looking to kill him. I wanted him dead he'd be stuck under a reef already."

"Then what do you want from me?"

"I just want him put away somewhere where no one will listen. Credibility crushed, you get the idea. Want him where he can 't hurt her."

"Okay. You can stop the sales pitch now, it's getting boring." Sweeps his drink and stands up while Sawyer remains seated. Doesn't know if this is a win or a loss. "I'll do it. For her. And you better make the money worth my while, blockhead."

"It will be. And then some."

"See what I can do... I'll be in touch. Emporium right?" Puts his smokes back in his pocket and smoothens back his hair. Looking out, above Sawyer's head, at the ocean. Probably aware of the effect it has. The low sun straight in his face making his eyes burn orange and umber.

"Yeah."

"And hey… tell her; I'm sorry. I did what I had to. I never meant to hurt her." His hands on the back of his chair as if he couldn't' stand upright without holding onto something. Sincere now.

"Well too bad you did then." Miserable sucker.

"And I've paid for it, wouldn't you say?" he says stroking the bridge of his own nose with a finger. "So, you two going to play happy family now? Is that your plan? How is it going to work?"

"Ain't none of your fucking business."

Danan laughing, a hard, flinty little laughter. Like taking a long steak knife and twirling it around where it hurts the most.

"You can't heal people, cowboy. You either hate them or love them... so stop expecting her to be whole. She never will be, trust me. Expect nothing from her and you might just be alright."

"You're an expert on healing now Dorian?"

"Yes. That cowboy - that I'm an expert at."

…

Henry, as crumpled and greasy as always in Hurley's office. Sawyer tapping his finger, his leg vibrating. Can't sit still for shit. Nervous, jittery - about to blow apart. Like a junkie in withdrawal which is probably exactly what he is.

"So, he agreed?"

"Yep. But it's gonna' cost us buddy." Chewing those gums like a camel. In with one and as soon as the flavor is out he swallows it and pops in another. Aware that it can't be good. All that nicotine. But it helps - for about two seconds.

"No problem. Hugo has set aside funds for…for the event of something like this."

"Really? What… like planting goodies on someone and hooking them up with law enforcement."

"Well, he didn't call it that, exactly."

"What did he call it then?"

"Miscellaneous."

"Great, then we've got our very first miscellaneous. Go and write those checks Marlow. The sooner we get this thing off the ground the better."

"Hey, you can smoke if you like." Pushes the ashtray towards him. Nice silver thing, Hurley sure doesn't skimp. "You look like you could need one."

"Nah. I quit."

"That nicotine gum then dude?"

"Yep genius."

"I'm sure you're not supposed to eat that many. And you shouldn't swallow them."

"You my mama now Henry?" Pissy and irritated. Maybe he should just give it all up and smoke. Has a brain splitting headache too. Doesn't even know why he ever thought this might be a good idea. Going cold turkey on a day like this. "Come on now, get cracking. We ain't got all that much time."

…

She throws up. That's the first thing she does every morning, sure as clockwork. Throws up before she even has anything in her stomach. Brushes her teeth to rid herself of the taste. She takes her shot. Her first one on her own. Sits on the edge of her bed, skin pinched between her fingers. It's no big deal but minutes afterwards she has an ugly purple welt at the injection site. Wears a loose sundress today over her jeans. Leaves them wide open. No point in denying it anymore, no way she can squeeze her stomach in. But all in all it's like every other morning. The ultrasound, the doctor last night. It changes nothing. Back to not believing. Keeping hope at bay.

She hangs out in the kitchen. The guests have been packed off on a day tour with Mario as their faithful servant. A trip to Ubud for some cultural show and half-day at a spa to pamper their rich asses. Pieter is off somewhere, she hopes he falls down into a volcano or something so that she doesn't have to deal with it. Ni Luh is scrubbing out the fridge, clearing up for new supplies to be picked up.

"You not sad to see the guest leave huh?" Ni Luh's beautiful round moon-face grins at her. She's that obvious. "They are getting on my last nerve too. But soon we'll be getting a new pack, just another week."

"Can I help you wash those racks off?" Points at the upper shelves near the ceiling, where they keep dry foodstuff behind a net.

"Sure…." She ventures but her lips thin a little, her eyes shifty. "It's just that… well Mr. Herbert told me to… you have to rest. I'm supposed to take care of you."

"You are supposed to 'take care of me'?" Doesn't like the sound of that. Fills her with dread. "What am I? An invalid?"

"Ya… that's what Mr. Herbert said... make sure you eat and all." Ni Luh focuses her attention the fridge she's wiping down. He's sure been busy around here, finding her a baby sitter and all.

"He's a good man your cousin, taking you in." Ni Luh says, nose half way into the vegetable box. Kate stands there, torn between storming out and lonely enough to want to stay. What the hell has he been telling everyone? Taking her in! The cheek.

"Yep, he's a regular hero my cousin."

"Since your fiancé is not around, well – he must feel responsible."

They stay silent for a while. Ni Luh scrubbing energetically at the fridge. Her strong arms shaking with the effort.

"So when is he coming?"

"Who?"

"The fiancé? You will get married no? Before you're too big?" Gestures at her own round belly. Has a nasty urge to ask her if she's pregnant too. Makes a grimace before she decides to blow apart Sawyer's comfortable little lies.

"There is no fiancé Ni Luh."

"But the father…?"

"No father."

Sly bastard. Thinks he can do what he wants. She's going to kill him when he puts his big rude foot on this deck again. And where is it? Where did he sleep last night?

"Oh," she says, unable to disguise the pity. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing. I'm not going to do anything." Doesn't know what to do. Won't think of it. Her jaws so tense they almost crumble. It doesn't hurt if you don't let it.

"Okay, okay… only Mr. Herbert says... I thought… Ah, do you want me to make you a sandwich or some lunch?" If she adds 'good for the baby' she'll bludgeon her to death with a broom.

"No, no I'll just wait for the others, for Herbert to come back… Have you seen him this morning?"

Ni Luh, filling her round cheeks with air and releasing it in one big puff. A sigh. Wipes her hands on her skirt, raising her fingertips against her mouth. The pity exchanged for something else. Uncomfortable.

"He… he won't be back. Mr. Herbert said, not to wait for him."

"Not to wait… with lunch?" He's staying away another day. Where is he. Hates this, not knowing what he's up to. It isn't normal. He'd always let her in on his plans, but something must have happened. Something between them changed. He is freaked out, she knows it. Cassidy. Her. They are not so different after all. This is what he does, runs and hides.

"No. We stay today and tomorrow we let guests go on their shopping trip to Kuta. Then we're to continue to Jakarta, as planned. Pick up new guests... Mr. Herbert's orders, not to wait for him."

"And he'll what..? Join us there or…? What did he say Ni Luh?"

Ni Luh's large wet dog eyes. Shakes her head and says nothing.

Kate turns towards the counter. Her hands flat against its cool surface staring straight into the open cabinet. Arms set at a stiff angle, keeping her from falling over. Left. Won't. Be back. Gone. Like a scalpel slicing her skin, no pain at first, the fine, fine cut. And then. All at once. The wounds splits apart and it is too much. To much.

…

The plank leading down to the pier. It taunts her. Haunts her. She walks past it. Back and forward, walks around the ship, around and around, eying it. They are in Sanur. So near their little house. She could just sneak off, for a little while. Have a little look. Doesn't know why but she needs to see it. Reminds her of a happy time. Lie or no lie, she'd been happy there, Claire and Aaron under the same roof. Her Aaron, the milky sweet smell of his baby skin. The weight of him against her chest. A longing that goes beyond that. Her own. Baby. Would have been big now. And there is no use in thinking of it. What's gone is gone.

The pier, the beach-walk beyond tempting her. It beckons, whispers. Come. Leave. Run. Nothing here to stay for.

But his voice is stronger. And she can't believe he'd leave her. Not for real. Ni Luh must have misunderstood. Wants to go after him, force answers out of him.

Stay put Kate.

Toothpaste breath and his beautiful mouth. Should have kissed him, pulled him into bed with her. Made him hers again. Should have. Could have. Would have. Her hesitation, her questioning everything. She's a wimp, that's what she is. A world-class chicken. Played it safe.

Stay put. Stay on this damn boat.

But when did she ever follow orders? She's losing her footing. The pendulum between trust and doubt. He's up to something and he's leaving her outside. Leaving her hanging. Why wouldn't he involve her? It doesn't make any sense. Unless he is really leaving her.

…

Late afternoon, the others ought to be getting back soon. There is a ceremony, a procession of sorts down at the beach. She puts a foot on the plank. Just going to get down, have a little look around. The colorful clothes calling for her. Women in white blouses and yellow sarongs. Large offering bowls, cookies, fruits and flowers piled high, topped off with incense sticks. The air fragrant, the longing chewing up all resolve. Puts the next foot on it. Careful on the narrow plank. Just a little look, a short walk. What would the harm be in that?

"Come here, I've made some coffee and buns for you." Ni Luh calling for her making her almost lose her balance. Like a prison guard. She must have been watching her. A substitute mother. Like the one she never had. Comes up and wraps an arm around her, much shorter, the arm ends up around her waist, leading her away.

"Come here Ettie, come sit down. Try to relax a little." She bundles her up, into the main salon where there is a good view over the marina.

"What's with the coffee Ni Luh? It tastes different."

"Ginger. I put ginger in it. You know, for the nausea."

And it's better today. Maybe it's the little hope that comes in the shape of hair-fine syringes or maybe it's the ginger. Maybe the steady chuff-chuff-chuff she heard last night.

"Thank you. Hey… that's Pieter right?"

The wheat blond man walking down the pier towards the Merdeka. No. Go away. Another person walking behind him. And God. She knows that walk, the fluid movement, the sleek lines. The hair, glossy dark, cut straight like Cleopatra's.

Dewi.

Like seeing a ghost. Dewi. Here. With Pieter, walking up the plank. Her, slim and perfect in a little red dress. Long pale legs making it up the narrow ledge easily. A large tote bag on her shoulder. Pieter must think he's died and gone to heaven.

"Don't worry. I'll keep him out of your way. You go lie down."

She does. Careful to lock the door now. Dewi here. Doesn't understand how it all hangs together only knows that it does. Something about Pieter, how sure he was last night, it keeps clawing at her. He knows something. Has some kind of power. Sawyer wouldn't, and this she is certain of, wouldn't have left him standing if Pieter didn't have some kind of stranglehold on him. If Pieter knows Dewi, then he knows. About her.

She paces in the cabin. A hazy escape plan taking shape. Just knows she has to get away, leave. Packs her bag. Passport, a little clothes. Aaron's blanket, the syringes and the aspirin. Bank papers and the red espadrilles he'd bought her. That night, how they'd kidded around, sweet and tender, meeting each other half way. Hurts to think how easily she'd let that go. She's weak. Could have fought for him, could have fought to keep herself from falling away. From running. But it's time to run again. All signs point to it. Better sooner than later. Zips her bag shut and looks around the cabin. Nothing else she needs. It's all there in the light little overnighter.

"Ethel, open up!" Ni Luh's voice shrill, unlike her usual butter-soft Balinese sing-song. "Now."

Scrambles to get the door open, the urgency rattling her.

"Come on, move it! Stop standing there mouth hanging open. You'll catch flies."

Ni Luh, bossy, all business. Dragging her along, ushering her forward. She snatches her bag up.

"You packed? You knew?"

"No… knew what? What's happening Ni Luh?"

"The police. The police. On the dock, plain clothed officers. Coming this way... Lets go! We'll talk later"

Police. She knows, all is lost. Doesn't matter anyway, was leaving in any case. Senses dulled, numbed, Ni Luh's hand warm around her wrist. Like a mother dragging an unwilling child to school.

"Where are we going! What are you doing?"

"Dinghy."

"What. What about the meds?"

Ni Luh holds up a little freezer box. Small, like a kid's lunch box and the image is complete. Off to school it is then.

"How? How did you know? How come you're prepared?"

"You want to be caught by police or you want to go dinghy."

Alright. Dinghy it is. Ni Luh fast and effective. The sound of the oars dipping into the water, ear splitting to her. Though she knows it's not. Ni Luh's strong brown arms, her almost manly grip on the oars. Rows the boat like a pro. Navigating among the other ships, away, putting a steady slow distance between their little boat and the 'Merdeka'.

They don't speak. She sits there feeling like she might throw up any second, feeling utterly useless. Like a little Barbie doll that can't fend for herself. Holding onto he bag in her lap.

They row southwards, past the dock. Far beyond. The boats replaced by marshland. Wants to protest when she starts rowing the boat through the muddy water, tall grass folding itself around them. The sky a deep azure blue, surreal, deepening downwards from the dome towards the sea.

"Where are we going?"

"Hide you."

Doesn't ask any more questions. Puzzling, this relative stranger helping her away from the cops. The tropical night falling fast around them. The sound of crickets and creatures of the night holding a concerto around them. The dripping of oars and Ni Luh's calm steady rowing. They hide the little boat in the high grass, make their way up towards a road, mud up to their knees. The road is lined with women waiting, every ten meters. Short skirts, their beautiful Balinese faces disfigured by garish make up. Maybe Ni Luh notices her expression.

"Don't mind them. Just working ladies. Like us, they don't like cops either."

"Oh… yeah of course."

And where is she taking her? She wants to ask but can't bring herself to. Why is she helping at all? It doesn't make any sense.

"We call my friend. Come. Let's find phone."

"I have a phone." She digs in her bag and hands the cell phone over to Ni Luh. "Why are you doing this?"

Watches as she flicks the lid open and carefully enters the numbers.

"You and me. We are like sisters." Turns her back on Kate while she speaks. Hushed soft tones. "Okay. Lets go. We'll go to my friend's house. It's not far, we can walk."

They trudge on. Her wet jeans sticking to her legs. Stained brown from the knee down, sea grass glued to them. Ni Luh's wide hips in front of her, swinging the icebox in her left hand, almost jollily. As if this were normal, as if there were anything remotely normal about this. Escaping the police.

"Why? I don't' understand."

"Sometimes you have to just trust. Come, keep walking. The faster you're indoors the better. Bali is not safe for you."

"But why are you doing this?"

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm a friend."

"What?" A hand on her shoulder pulling her around so that she can look at her. Chocolate eyes meeting hers, long curved lashes. Like those beautiful Balinese cows, and she knows it doesn't seem a good association. But they do have that same sage quality, the beautiful wise eyes. Large and wet and brown.

"Pieter knows about you."

"What are you talking about? What is it that Pieter knows?"

"About you… your real name. That's why… Mr. Herbert is taking care of it."

Feels cold. So cold. Real name. That didn't last very long. Shit.

"What… what is he taking care of? What is my real name Ni Luh? And why are you helping me?"

"I'm… lets say I'm sympathetic to your… your cause."

"My cause…?" She's not a revolutionary freedom fighter for Christ's sake.

"Yes. What they say you did."

"How much Ni Luh? That's why right? If the police catches me you can't ask for anything. So. How much – do – you – want?

"It's not like that."

"So what's it like? You're going to put me in a tighter spot before you blackmail me? Ripen me up a bit, put the pressure on? What's it like huh?" Fear making her vicious. Stands there looking at the icebox in Ni Luh's hand. She could take it. If she lunges forward, takes her by surprise. No problem. She can beat the crap out of her and run. But the other woman is strangely calm.

"No. No blackmail. I want nothing."

"Everybody wants something."

"Those men, they're from narcotics. They received an anonymous tip. It's been taken care of. They're not after you."

"What? So… by taking care of… You mean Pieter. He was set up? By who?"

She only shrugs. Round brown shoulders in the sleeveless coral pink blouse.

"Herbert did this? That's what he's doing?" Shit. What a mess. What a fucked-up mess. "And you Ni Luh… you must want something."

"Yes." Okay, if it's money she's got it. The account. More than anyone could ever ask for. She's willing to part with it. It's just money. "I want to come with you…"

"Come with me? Where?"

And she's aware of how dumb she must sound, repeating every single question. But she has a hard time following. Feels like she's being slowly covered with snow. A whole big pile of it, heavy and cold.

"I have an idea. I know where you could be safe, until the… well the baby."

"So you're Mother Theresa… you'd help me just because you are just so kind. That it?"

"No… well. I believe, the only way to fight it, the darkness inside of you is to be better. Than him."

"What the hell are you talking about? Ni Luh? Is that even your name?"

"What you did. I… I did something… same. I'm like you. You and me… we are the same."

Just stares at her. It's not real. She is not standing here talking murder with the head chef. A misunderstanding. She hears what she wants.

"What did you do?"

"Like you... And I'm proud of it. Proud. But I won't be like _him_. Karma, I'm Hindu, I need to put things in balance. You understand? Black and white, evil feeds evil and good is returned with good."

Not happening, like the ramblings of a crazy person. This. Standing on the roadside by the marshland discussing Karma with a little Balinese woman who speaks perfect English, prostitutes eying them curiously. And the weird thing is that though the words are abstract, loosely picked out of air. She understands. The precise words to describe what she believes, she believes it too.

"You did what to who Ni Luh?" She asks, not because she wants to know. Just to test, just because the other woman's lack of shame is so puzzling. The way she talks, as if it has nothing to do with her.

They stare at each other. A dare. Dare you to say more, she thinks. A passing flash of something. Yes. It's there. It's buried beneath a practiced bravado, under a poised grace. But it's there. The grimy hues of family secrets. Same. Stares until Ni Luh admits defeat, looking down on her sandals.

"My uncle. Everyone loved him. But he loved only me." She'd have laughed at how the soft consonants treat the words, if they weren't so true. 'He loved only me.' She knows everything about being singled out, being special. Like an addiction, thinking you can't live without it, can't be invisible again. Knows all about sunning yourself in someone's eyes, relishing in the attention, not realizing the walls closing until they are ten feet high towering above you and there is no longer an escape route.

"I was never caught, that's the only difference between you and me. Only difference." No no, that's not all. It's the way Ni Luh's eyes gleam, a glossy hard black when she looks at her again. Powerful. Pain, she recognizes it but this woman is different. Not like Kate, not hanging her head in shame, not carrying the stain inside, not letting it dominate her, eat her up. Proud.

"Oh God… "

"You, I read your story on the internet. You did a good thing."

"I never did a good thing."

"Wish I had done it like you. Boom! Fast and clean. I was very careful. Took a long time. Put a little rat poison in his tea every morning before school, very little. Every morning, month in, month out. Waiting, waiting. Patience. So much patience. He was sick, very sick. From doctor to doctor, never a cure. Everyone else was very sad."

Oh great. They have hired a poisoner as cook.

"So…" And somehow, inexplicably. She's not scared. Not frightened. "What do we do now?"

"Nothing. Quid pro quo." Jeez, Latin too. Evil genius. No, it doesn't feel like that, it just doesn't. She digs in her pocket, takes a step closer and presses something in Kate's hand. A cassette tape, the old kind.

"What's this?"

"My confession. My proof of good faith. So maybe you can begin to trust me. See, I have a plan. For you. For the baby."

"There is no…"

Puts her large warm hand on her cheek. Maternal. And she feels it. Doesn't know why this person cares at all, doesn't know why she trusts her. But something rings true. Just like that. An ally crawling out of the woodwork, a fellow murderer and she feels oddly safe, protected even. Something intriguing about this woman who must carry her own dark secrets, her very own stain, and still, a survivor. Like her. Like she wants to be. Could be.

Something good has to come out of her life. The balance must be brought around, put in place. The demons, they need angels. The filth needs beauty. She needs. Him.

And the baby, the budding hope of a life. She knows it's there. Like a little ransom. A passenger. Her love, frail, frightened, hiding its face in palms. Held back. Won't love it until she sees it. Until it takes its first breath, flays and screams. Until she sees it, touches it, she won't believe. Love needs proof, demands it.

It seems too much to ask for, like opening your mouth wide, waiting to be fed like a baby bird. Give me this. The greed of wanting it all, asking for it too because you think you won't get it anyway. Might as well ask. Damn God. Damn you. This, just this, and she'll never ask another thing.

Wants them. Wants everything. The man, he's not good, not bad – just a man who knows how to push the darkness aside. The passenger too, unwilling, accidental – and so, so damn wanted. Wants them both.

_Please._ Won't bother God again. Ever.

…

_Slush, fluff? Out of character? I don't' know. Maybe. Probably. For those familiar with Bali, I have taken some liberties with location since the swamps are much further south (just didn't feel like moving the ship). Hope you enjoyed it in any case :) Thanks so much for reading through yet another pathologically long chapter._


	36. Another heartburn

_Thank you so much all you beautiful people for the sweet words, the feedback and the comments on the last chapter. So deeply appreciated! And your patience, honestly it's the stuff of legends… amazing. I know it's been far too long, and if you've given up on this fic, it is completely understandable. I'll just hang around, wash the dishes or something... don't mind me._

_This chapter is rough and I'm not sure it's ready to be posted but I wanted to get it up before the whole fic fades away if it hasn't already... Apologies for the general scrappiness, I'll try going back to polish it up later._

_Rated: M for mature subjects and language./ Past pregnancy loss mentioned._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it._

…

**Another heartburn**

…

"Where are we going Ni Luh?"

The cassette tape clasped in her hand. Her assurance of Ni Luh's genuine intentions, then again it might just be a Phil Collins mixed tape for all she knows. Her wet jeans sticking to her legs, shoes soaked and probably ruined by now. She lifts the back of her sundress up and tucks the cassette into her back pocket. Doesn't know why, but something about it reminds her of high school. Not that anyone ever gave her a mixed tape back then. Except Sawyer. It makes her smile, the thought of him and that stolen tape. _For her._

And he better be waiting for her somewhere, grumpy, leaning against a wall, one knee pulled up, foot flat against it. A smoke between his lips, head cocked to the side. Imagines him like an old ragged, Southern version of James Dean. Better be there waiting for her, wherever they're going.

_This isn't right._

"My friend, she will put us up for the night."

"And… it's safe? No one will… you know?" _Report her, _turn her over to the cops, sell her out? She's just asking for the sake of it, she has no way of knowing who might be the one to bring her down. Has to trust someone.

Ni Luh doesn't turn to look at her. Just speaks straight ahead and keeps up her rapid pace.

"I said I'd keep you safe and I will. You'll sleep like a baby and tomorrow we'll get you back on the ship and get out of here. Just like Mister Herbert said."

They walk fast and Kate watches Ni Luh's sturdy legs move in front of her, ankles curiously slim. Her energy surprising, how she soldiers on, seemingly tireless, while Kate struggles to keep up. It seems like they walk forever, continuing on along a heavily trafficked road, a whole convoy of people dressed in white and yellow passing by. The women sitting seemingly effortlessly sideways on the back of motorbikes balancing their heavy offering vases and sometimes children too.

Ni Luh's friend's house, not much more than a hut in an alley off the main road. The roof sagging as if a giant has sat down on it. A short beautiful woman, a nose like Cleopatra's and a child hanging in her skirts opens the gate. Kate follows Ni Luh through the courtyard, mirroring the little shy girl, hiding behind the other woman the best she can. This is not her. Trailing behind like a meek little lamb. Doesn't know why she does it. She sure wouldn't have followed him like this, on pure faith. Would have questioned him, bugged and pestered him for all the details instead. Suspicion and healthy dose of skepticism, it's survival tactics that have served her well and she isn't sure how wise it is to surrender the control now. To this woman she hardly knows, who she has no hooks on, no hold on, save an old cassette tape in her denim pockets. She's tired, too drained to think, too weary to worry.

"This is Wayan and her daughter, little Ayu." Ni Luh makes simple introductions but doesn't bother mention her name to their hosts. Maybe they already know, or they don't want to know.

The woman smiles, a row of blindingly white teeth in a beautiful cocoa brown face. Her stern fingers on the little girl's back, pushing her forward. She takes Kate's hand and presses it to her forehead, a gesture that seems almost obscene, something so obsolete and feudal about it. The princess dress, white and perfect and synthetic, Kate's throat tightening at the sight without really knowing why. The creature within her, her little intruder, she doesn't want to think of it, wants to quell the unwelcome whispers in her head.

_It could be like this._

A hope that won't be subdued, won't be hidden in the closet no more. A little girl and her mother in a crummy house. A simple happiness, just the two of them. Like her and Aaron, way back then. After she'd lost everything, her only reason to get out of bed every morning. She'd needed him infinitely more than he her. Slides a hand down to her own stomach. _It has to be alright. _Can't lose it too. It better be growing and thriving in there, because she's done with death, done with failing.

"Come on in. We'll get a bed ready for the night and then I'll have to get back to the ship. The guests ought to be returning by ten. Need to see everything is alright and that the police has left."

The house, dilapidated and sparsely furnished but tidy, loved like a home should be. Could be like this. No. Impossible. She can't see that far ahead. Can only take one day at the time, small, minute portions. If she makes it through the day, one more hour, one more minute , she might be okay. But she won't love it, the intruder, she won't. Won't believe until she sees it. Until she has confirmation, a proof in the shape of something alive, something living and breathing, in her arms. That's the least it will take to win her over.

For now, it's just a passenger, some free-loader that she'll take mercy on. Will do the shots, will try to keep it alive. _But she won't love._ It. Not yet.

Don't count your chicken before they are hatched. Has always despised that saying. Mostly because it's true. And she'd learned that the hard way.

The hospital in downtown L.A. they'd taken her to, with two female guards to keep her from absconding. A considerable flight risk, that's what she knows her files say. Strict orders to keep her cuffed to the hospital bed to the bitter end. And she can't say she hadn't had the urge, that it hadn't crossed her mind to try to break away, to bust out. Better to plot escape than to ponder a dead baby in your belly. In any case, both are pretty futile pastimes.

Jack had come by, pulled some strings with some guy at the hospital to see her, to speak to the doctor. She had wanted to disappear, disintegrate when he'd appeared in that room. A crisp white shirt, a whiff of aftershave, handsome and a pretended confidence while studiously avoiding looking properly at her. Had held her journal, had probably wanted to offer his support, make the doctor take good care of her. She had turned her face away from him. There had been a large square window, dark outside, night falling over L.A. while she was lying in there.

They'd rolled in a machine. One of the guards, a little bit older, maternal looking but tight lipped. She had said nothing, not a word during the whole ordeal. Had stood there silently holding Kate's eyes while they did the ultrasound. She'd shivered from the air condition and the cold gel squirted on her belly. A doctor, pale and red haired, his face as plain as toast. Had known he was just the messenger but she had hated him and his tight East coast accent. Some Ivy League hot shot, must have been Jack's doing, a specialist for a criminal. In any case, it hadn't mattered. They might as well have sent her to the butcher down the street. The end result would have been the same. Had fixed her eyes on the dour prison guard as the scan confirmed what she'd already known.

"Sorry Miss, no heartbeat, we're going to have to induce." The guard's face hadn't flinched, hadn't shown anything at all and Kate had been grateful. She'd hung on to those hard eyes for dear life. The lack of pity – she had clung to it.

Induce. Innocent enough. But it isn't and she knows it. It's not the little sweet death of being put under, the anesthesia, the mindless limbo and waking up empty, it being all over again. It's not that because of course nothing can be that brutally simple.

Life will take the most unkind route - _always._

"You'll have to birth it. It's too far gone. We'll get you started on a drip." She'd known it but hope is a cruel beast. Expectations might be lowered, over and over again and still, hope will find a way to crush you.

"Kate, I'll stay with you. " Jack, she'd wanted to kick his teeth out, for witnessing this. Her at her lowest, no more than an animal.

"No." Hadn't wanted him there, hadn't wanted anyone to see her like that. The humiliation, the proof of her failure. Maybe, if he hadn't come that day, they would have ended differently.

He had given her a little peck on the cheek, had told her he'd hang around, wait around if she might want him. Later. Had forgotten about him, the second he'd stepped outside the door, after she'd told the guards to not let him in under any circumstances. Not afterwards either.

The younger of her guards had slipped a hand in hers and squeezed it once before Kate had shaken it loose. The pain, the physical part of it – concrete and she'd somehow felt better for it. They'd offered her drugs and she hadn't been able to accept them. She owed him that at least; her pain as payment for being unable to keep him alive. She had done this to him, she had somehow killed him. Hadn't been good enough, deserving enough. _Her fault._

They hadn't been unkind to her. Had dressed her in one of those hospital gowns, tied her hair back and the younger guard had fed her ice chips until she'd sneered to her to fuck the hell off. Her compassion too sticky, too much to bear. Hours into labor, things not proceeding as they should, the older guard had un-cuffed her from the hospital bed. The shame bigger than the physical pain, her boy, how she had failed him in the most fundamental way. She'd heard her own voice, hardly human. Hadn't wanted to own that sound. The daze, the fogginess, she'd welcomed it. That last push, the one that ought to have led to tears of joy but instead had resulted in a silent void. Uncomfortable nurses, avoiding her eyes. No one saying a word.

One of the nurses had taken him immediately, she had caught a glimpse of a blanket, light yellow, the type used for wrapping newborns, not corpses. Failed products. A tiny little package, not bigger than subway sandwich. Kate just lying there staring at the fluorescent light above her. Just like that, she'd lost him. Lost the last part of James and a piece of herself as well. And nothing – _nothing would ever be right again._

"Do you want to hold him? Some find it easier to move on…" Someone in a nurse's uniform, her face out of focus, just a pink blur.

Him. _A boy. _Had thought of him of course, the one who was to blame for all of this in the first place._ Sawyer. _Had pictured him in that drab hospital room, fragile and viciously real. He wouldn't have been able to share this, wouldn't have been able to handle it. She'd squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out it all out. She'd just given birth. _No baby._ Just a neat little sandwich package to say goodbye to.

"I can bring him in. He's been cleaned up and…"

"No."

_No, _she wouldn't survive it. No way to pretend it wasn't real, that it hadn't happen if she were to see him.

"Well, we'll keep him here overnight, if you change your mind. He doesn't look bad, no need to be scared. Looks just like a real baby, only small."

_'Just like a real baby'_, meaning that he wasn't. Just like she wasn't a real woman, couldn't even do that. And she had known. She could survive a lot, but to look at him, to make this loss real, no. This is what happens when you love someone, they steal you away. Shred you to pieces one way or another, intentionally or accidentally. Her mother, Wayne, Tom, Sawyer, Aaron and him, her last one, it always ends the same. This is what you get, what you risk.

"I said no."

That first night, in a stupor, almost pleasantly numb – she'd accepted the morphine in the end. It had been useless, she had lain cuffed to that hospital bed unable to sleep anyway. But for a moment in the stillness of the night, she'd convinced herself, that she would be alright, that she'd be able to pick up the pieces, to move on. The worst over.

And then a baby, crying somewhere. Its wailing ripping her apart afresh. Faint and muffled through thick hospital walls, but a baby's cries nonetheless, unmistakable and shrill. Not dead, not like hers. The front of her gown had soaked through before she'd understood what had happened. Two big wet spots spreading over her breasts, making the fabric stick to her skin. Had been frantic, thinking she was hearing voices and that the ceiling had sprung a leak before she'd realized that her milk had come in. Her milk. For no one.

Had tried to press the sheet against her chest, to make it stop, to hide her inadequacy. _Take it away. _Her body refusing to lie, acting as it had been programmed. There ought to have been life, instead there had been nothing. Just a big ugly nothing. Had tried to knock her head against the bed railing, but the distance hadn't been enough to allow her to do any real damage, to move the pain outside, make it physical. Had failed at that too.

Nurses passing through her room, hushed and compassionate. Had waited for her to break down, to react like a normal woman. But she hadn't cried. Not once. Had just shut down. A little death, small and insignificant, no one to miss him, better like this, she'd told herself. What would she have done with a baby? He had been right, all along. Her in prison, alone, he himself gone, most likely dead. By the time she had been transferred back to her cell a few days later, her milk had dried up and she'd convinced herself that it was nothing. That it hadn't scraped her heart out completely, hadn't left her hollow. The lesson engraved, imprinted the hard way, using a little yellow sandwich-sized package.

_Love fucking hurts._

…

She's seated on the couch while they bustle around, bringing bed linen and pillows out from a large wooden cupboard. Seemingly excited by her intrusion into their little home. The girl climbs up to sit next to her and she's a funny little thing. Ears too large, pointed little chin and no front teeth when she grins towards Kate. Suddenly brave, brazen even, moving closer every time Kate looks away until she sits slick against her. The fabric of her white dress synthetic and a little scratchy against her arm. Wonders if her mother dressed her child up for her sake. Feels rotten about it, the thought of a little girl dolled up in a princess dress because her mother wants to make a good impression on a visiting fugitive.

"Hi there." Turns towards the girl and tries to smile. She nods, slowly bobbing her head up and down as if she is considering a serious question, brow pulled together in the middle and eyes focused on Kate.

She sits there watching Ni Luh and Wayan prepare for her, feeling utterly useless. At the mercy of strangers, and the doctor, the escape plan, Pieter and Dewi, he'd evidently hadn't felt the need to brief her on anything. Not a word. It stinks of something Jack might have done, a flashback to a time when he had been different. How he'd handed her a gun when Jack had refused. The indignation bubbles forward, hot and purple and vexing.

_What the hell is his problem?_

"I'm sorry… I need to make a phone call." Ni Luh, gestures to the front door. If she wants privacy it's either outside or the bathroom. Gets up and the little girl follows her like a tail. The signals go through, one, two, three, static crackling on the line. He doesn't answer. The grating sound of the ring tone acerbating her anger. He'll call her hormonal for sure, will tease her about being upset. The chauvinistic asshole, gone for little over a day and the worst thing of all. How she misses him. Her brain really must be going soft. Tries again. And again. And she almost drops the phone, totally unprepared when at the fifth attempt, he answers.

"Sawyer… Where are you?"

"You okay girl? Lulu taking good care of you?" He sounds like she's interrupting something far more exciting. Detached, a little disinterested as if he's already on his way. _Away. _Asking just for the sake of it. Obligation, that's what it is.

"What the hell is this Sawyer?" A slow-burning fury snatching all the air away. Torn between wanting to hear his voice and wanting to kill him. He draws in his breath sharply, a pissed-off sigh. _She ought to be grateful,_ bet that's what he's thinking. Bastard."When were you going to let me in on your big plan?"

"Jeez Freckles, can this wait? I'm kinda' up to my neck trying to keep your sweet little behind out of jail as it is already." Deep, and grumbling through the phone. Hears him say something, sound muted, hand probably held in front of his mouth. He's with someone else, somewhere else. And here she is, with a formidable babysitter in the shape of Ni Luh. Sees her sneaking a brief look through the open door only to move on by. But the little girl doesn't budge. Observes Kate's every move.

"When did you find out! About Pieter? Why couldn't you just have told me?" He's obviously pulled off something complicated and convoluted to keep her out of harm's way and she can't muster up an ounce of gratitude. It feels too much like being conned and she doesn't like it one bit. Has involved every Tom, Dick and Harry, this side of the Indian Ocean - but not her. Just bundles her off with a virtual reminds her of another time, back when all he did had an end-target that benefited Sawyer and Sawyer only. That stunt with the guns when he'd played her the same as all the rest. _How it had stung._

"Hey, what's up your bonnet? I'm busting my ass here trying to keep all the fuckwads away from you." Knows how he must look, jaw taut, eyes narrow and hard."

"And I didn't tell you 'cause, I didn't wanna' worry you - that's just the way the cookie crumbles around here Freckles."

Like that time with the _'Others'_. He'd known they'd been on a separate island, still he'd said nothing.

"That's _not_ your call." Out of balance, lines blurring and somewhere deep inside she's aware of the fact that she's not being very rational. But she doesn't care. All she can think of, how she's a burden to him now, an albatross around his neck. _'You better move on'_, that's what he'd said.

"Listen girl, you stay put alright? Don't go do something dumb now, and we'll talk later..." _Patronizing prick. _She can hear how he inhales, probably trying to think of some plausible excuse why he can't speak to her now.

_Something dumb?_ Condescending jerk, as if she's a child and too stupid for her own good.

"No, we'll talk now!" Too loud, she pauses, looks at the little girl standing in front of her, staring at her, round black eyes. Lowers her voice, tries to control it, ends up sounding like a leaking, wheezing gas valve instead. "I never asked for your help! Not once."

The girl moves backwards, probably scared by this seemingly irrational woman standing in her mother's courtyard beneath a frangipani tree. Muddy shoes trampling on the white blossoms and fallen flowers on the ground.

"Well tough, because I ain't asking if you want it. Ain't like you were facing up to any of it. Denial is only cute for so long, Freckles."

"I'm not an idiot, I would have seen a doctor on my own I just..."

"Sure, and pigs might fly! Look, you've had your head buried in the sand long enough already."

_Bastard. _Furious because she knows he has a point. Not that she'd ever give him that.

"Still none of your business." Aware of how ridiculous she sounds, like watching a train wreck about to happen, not able or willing to pull the breaks. Easier like this, being angry at him. Doesn't want to have to be grateful, doesn't want to owe him anything.

"No? _Seriously_ sweetheart, if that ain't my business, who the fuck will take care of it? You?" The last spit out like a bad cherry.

"I've managed fine on my own before. I don't need you..." Tit for tat, how far they've slipped.

"You don't _'need'_ me Kate? Well ain't that fucking fantastic? Glad we cleared that up Honey." Slick and cool as if he couldn't care less. Has almost forgotten how childishly cruel he becomes when he's hurt. The callousness that comes from a perceived injustice.

Wayan, the woman comes through the door, dressed in a golden yellow sarong with a sash tied around her waist, carrying a tray with flowers, cakes and incense. Passed right by Kate, a floating way of moving. There is a little altar at the corner of the little courtyard. A stone pillar with sculpted flowers and animals, monsters. Watches as Wayan places her offerings on top of it. The incense wafting her way. Wishes she had a way to placate the Gods too.

"This has nothing to do with you. Nothing." Knows that's precisely the thing to say to rub salt into wounds. Doesn't know where the overwhelming urge to hurt him comes from even. Wants to hurl the phone at the wall.

"Great so that, that fucking thing ain't my fucking business too, and you ain't my fucking…" Knows he'd be jabbing his finger in the direction of her stomach if he were here. Can almost see him, how he'd be all scrunched up, so transparently injured, the cussing getting ridiculously out of hand too. And she ought to hang up, only she's pushed out this far and she might as well bring it over the edge.

"I'm not your _anything_ James. I don't expect anything from you, nothing. You can just go on, go ahead, forget about it all!"

_No. _Wind it back, take it back. How she is incapable of withdrawing the words, saying sorry. Needs him. But she can't say it. It's not about pride, it's survival, plain and simple. But it sits like a metal ruler wedged in her throat, sharp corners that won't budge, can't be pulled out without causing some serious damage.

"This about the damn baby, you ain't got to worry..." A sound from his throat, almost growling. Probably grinding his teeth as well. "I ain't leaving you hanging like… like, you know…"

Can't even say the name. Cassidy. Won't leave her hanging like Cassidy. She sees where this is going, she'll be another reason for remorse, another one to add to his enormous pile of casualties. What he means is that he'll send her cash, that's what he's saying. Refuses to be his hit and run. Thinks money will make up for it. This. It's a disaster of such proportions she can't even begin to grasp it. He can take his damn responsibility and stuff it.

"Well don't _bother_ buddy."

"Don't worry Kate, ain't about to save your damn skin again. Next time you're on your own." Probably pouts, that thing he does when he shoots out his jaw and narrows his eyes. Looking outlandish, like a bad parody of an angry man" And a goddamn _'thank you' _would have done just fine!"

It's Kate now, not _honey pie, darling or sweet cheeks_. Just 'Kate'. Hard and unexpectedly sharp in his mouth, as if he's cutting the strings. Who the hell does he think he is? The snippy, curt replies, cutting her off at the knees like that. A fury mixing with nausea, how he is shoving her away. And it's too late to stem the tide, it washes over her, brings her away. From him.

"Thank you, _asshole_." She enunciates it with meticulous care. Crude and ugly, how easy it slips from her mouth and she can't take it back. She clicks the 'end call' button and closes her phone, pushing it into her pocket. So tired, she is so scared. Can't do this on her own, but she can't take his guilt, his pity. Her heart shrinking to the size of a prune. It must be the hormones because she's feeling weepy and lonely as hell.

As for the rest, as for him and her, they have just helped each other slam a univocal door shut. Just like that, he's slipped through her fingers.

Her mother with her stupid; 'you can't help who you love.' Glossing over what a monster she'd married. Still, the only thing her mother ever said that makes any sense what so ever. You can't help not loving your child either. And Sawyer or no Sawyer, she has to be better than that. It has to end, this cycle of neglect. Imagines her grandmother, a hard woman, bitter and hard. She'd given birth to the same kind of woman, another victim. And she had refused to be that. Better a murderer than a victim.

She returns inside, Ni Luh, turns to her when she comes through the door and meets her half way, an arm around her waist.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." _No. _She hadn't meant to let it go this far, hadn't meant to be that harsh.

"You sounded upset. Was it Mr. Herbert?"

"Yes." How can she explain it without sounding like a big spoiled brat. How all this, helping her, fixing for her, fussing about her is too much. Not what she wants from him. It eliminates any self worth she might have. Doesn't want to have to be grateful to him, can't let herself depend on him. Wants to curl up on a bed and just weep. Or just sleep. _Doesn't matter now._ She's on her own and she has to pick herself up. It's not the whole world, she was on alone with Aaron most of the time and before that too, she can do it again.

"It'll be okay, you'll see. He is very concerned about you, he takes care of you. It's a good thing."

"No, it's not a _good_ thing Ni Luh. Not this."

"Come, let's eat. Wayan has made some noodles." They sit down on her little sofa, crammed together all three of them, Kate, Ni Luh and the little girl. Wayan, takes a seat on a large flat pillow on the floor. Legs neatly folded to her side, watching Kate eat with a benevolent smile. Might as well face it. She is a charity case, nothing getting around it.

Ni Luh speaks to Wayan in Balinese, at least she assumes it is. More melodic, rises and falls softly, unlike the stuttering staccato of Indonesian. Ni Luh pushes a plate and a fork resolutely in her hands. Makes round funny eyes at her, almost like the little girl's.

"Now, we eat and talk."

Kate feels out of place and still, it's strangely comforting to sit here surrounded by the other three, the lively, bustling female company of them. Warm and gentle with an energy, unmistakable. A strength that connects them, the two older and the little one. Wants to ask what their secret is. So unlike herself, not the hostile suspicion she always carries in front of her like a bulletproof shield.

"So Wayan wants to know why you're not married." _Oh, by all means, don't be shy, ask what you want,_ she thinks. Wayan nods enthusiastically as if she understands. Her small fine hand around the fork, loading it so full Kate looks forward to the moment she presses it all into her mouth. She is not disappointed, her mahogany brown cheeks bulging like a chipmunk's.

"I… We… Well, it's not my priority right now, considering – the whole running and… all that."

The little girl says something to her mother and the mother nods at her too, but curtly. Admonishes her perhaps, but in an affectionate way, frown merging with a stunning smile.

"And Mr. Herbert… what does he think?"

"He… I don't know. I honestly don't know."

"He must be angry at this man just… leaving you like _this_." Points at her own stomach with her fork, a messy gesture while she chews happily, carelessly sloppy.

"Who?" Kate can see, this will be one long night. But it's a distraction at least. Feels a little less lonely, a little less insane. Thoughts of him buzzing around her brain, slowing down a little, loosing the frenzy.

"The baby's Papa… Mr. Herbert must be very angry at him."

"Nope, no I don't think he is." She chortles, wiping a little bit of oil from the corner of her mouth with her thumb.

"But, he leave you like this… alone." The innocuous tone, pressing on and on. Ni Luh is a sly one. Her accent, Kate notices, increasingly more 'Balinese', her English a lot less perfect. Realizes that she must be faking it, dumbing herself down to make Kate drop her guard. Oh, she knows this trick like her own pocket. Knows how it steers you, how it's aimed at lulling the other person into a false sense of security. Sawyer's drawl, how he exaggerates it, dishes it out in thick dollops when he's after something, playing slow and innocent.

"Ni Luh… stop it."

"What?" The gleaming intellect. She knows exactly what she's doing. Just entertaining herself. "Stop what? We're just talking. Girl's talk." She waves her fork in the air.

"_You_ know it's _his_ so stop doing that."

A sweet smirk as she turns her face towards Wayan, clucking like a mother hen. They would high-five each other if they weren't such perfect ladies.

"So what's wrong with you and Mr. Herbert?"

"Nothing is wrong." _Everything is wrong._ "It's complicated..."

"How _complicated_?" Pronounced with a large measure of disbelief. Ni Luh doesn't buy it, scoffs at the sheer stupidity of it. "How can _this_ be complicated? Two grown-ups like each other well enough to make baby. How is that complicated?"

"It would never work and… this, I don't... I don't want him to stick around because he has to... feels guilty." Stammering, stuttering like a nervous little girl. She ought to be able to defend herself better, but something about Ni Luh, how she dives into Kate's business with a gusto that crushes all normal social boundaries. It forces her to answer, to be real.

"So that's why he does this, that's why he planned all this? Guilt." Ni Luh's face, like a freshly baked bread, golden brown and plump.

"Yeah... Yeah, I think so."

"I see, so this is a good example of what your big sister Ni Luh likes to call _'luxury problem'_." She laughs openly now, quick translation for Wayan's benefit and then they are both almost folded over in laughter, slapping their thighs and the little girl joining in the best she can. "You make problems where there are no problems."

Kate sits there and though honestly, she can't see what is so damn funny, and they are clearly poking fun of her, she can't help smiling, their mirth infectious.

Ni Luh, laughter ebbing out, wiping tears with the back of her fingers. She puts a warm plump arm around Kate's shoulders, gives her a little squeeze and looks her straight in the eyes, those eyes, as if she were a thousand years old. A wise creature. You can't help wanting to listen to her.

"You see my friend Wayan here?" Other hand outstretched, palm up, indicating the other woman on her place on the floor, happily tucking in the last of her noodles.

"Yes of course I do."

"She has nice teeth ya? Nice and white." Wishes she'd drop the fake broken English, but it's carefully implemented for maximum effect.

"Yes, beautiful." Wayan, suddenly aware of Kate's staring at her mouth, a hand shooting up to cover her smile. Looking like a shy child.

"Yes, very nice." Ni Luh, smacks her lips together as they admire Wayan's wonderful smile. "Nice, but they are not her own. Fake. Every single one of them. "

"Oh…" Now that she mentions it, Kate feels stupid. Of course, no one has teeth like that. Large and bright white. Uncomfortable now, senses this is going somewhere unpleasant. Ni Luh's tone, still light and breezy but there is a shadow there over those sharp eyes.

"Mr. Herbert do too much for you?" _Doesn't like this._ Feels like a lamb being led to slaughter. She really is too easy. Ni Luh is running loops around her, miles ahead of her. A chess master, she's already plotted her strategy from start to finish and Kate feels dull next to her.

"What are you talking about?" She must have been listening in on the conversation earlier. Must have heard and it's no wonder. She'd hardly been quiet or discreet about it, too carried away by her emotions.

"Mr. Herbert help too much? Too nice? Think too much of you? Maybe care too much?" Dry and serious, not a hint of a smile now. Kate is silent, her head turned towards Ni Luh, eyes penetrating, stabbing at her as if she had her at knife point. Wants to look away but she can't, Ni Luh won't let her and there is nowhere to go.

"Wayan had a man too. Very considerate. Knock every tooth out of her mouth, make good space so he can buy new, beautiful, white plastic teeth. One full set."

_Oh Christ. _The shame, it comes out of nowhere, bizarrely enough on the other woman's behalf. Shame over having been revealed a victim. Nothing worse. Better a murderer than a victim.

"Very considerate. Then he want to start on little girl, give her new plastic teeth too, Wayan think, better let girl get her own teeth first before someone knock them out. So she leave."

Ni Luh releases her abruptly, looks away, returns her attention to her noodles as if they were talking about nothing special. As if this were normal small-talk.

"You care about him. I see it. All the time, looking at him as if he were a coconut cookie dipped in palm sugar."

Another off the hip translation for Wayan who is smiling openly again, letting her big beautiful fake teeth glimmer. Even winking at Kate and she can't help imagining that mouth with the plump red lips a gaping hole, beaten bloody and toothless. Still, she smiles. Still she sits here with her daughter and her friend and a strange woman dragged in from nowhere and she laughs and smiles and seems luminous and alive. She's no victim. Kate is. Sawyer's right, she needs to move on. Once and for all, leave that behind her. Stop letting her past make her crawl, hide and cover. Has to take courage.

"He care for you. Make big plans, get rid of bad men and get doctor to come to you and your baby. That, my silly little sister, that is a good man. Don't waste it."

"It's not like that…"

"Hep-ep-ep!" Her finger in front of Kate's face to silence her ridiculous reasoning that is no reasoning at all, just plain cowardice. "No 'but'! Everyone in this room, you, me, Wayan and even our little Ayu, we all know bad men. We know them very well, we're experts..."

Wayan and the little girl looking at her now, as if they understand this part. Ni Luh is fascinating to watch in any language.

"Yes? But this one..." Her finger stabbing at her thigh to hammer home her point. "_This_ one – he is a good man."

Kate stares down into her plate. Can't eat anymore, and it's not a revelation. It's something she's always known. Her paltry excuses to run from him. Her inability or rather, her unwillingness to fight for him. _Really fight._

"Yes." _He is. _No matter what he himself might believe, he is a good man. His clumsy, fumbling attempts at communicating, at breaking through to her. That expressive, volatile affection, the awkward warmth of him. _And what's wrong with her? _She hasn't even tried properly, so scared of losing face, scared he'll be disappointed in her. She'd rather push him away then take a gamble.

"You want to be a whole person, you've got to learn to be generous. And not to be so frightened of the good things." It ought to sound cliché, a corny thing people say but in Ni Luh's mouth it's genuine, it's wisdom and it makes her think that she can find a way to him. One that doesn't involve her having to lose her self-respect or herself. "That man cares a whole lot for you but from what I've seen, he's tired. You have to help him out."

"Well I would have... if he'd thought it fit to share a crumb of information for once. I'm..."

"I didn't mean with this. I meant that you need to give him something, I don't know... tenderness. Take care of him for a change, let him be on the receiving end some times, and you'll see, you two will be just fine."

Funny how her English is all of a sudden near perfect again. She's a slippery one, this one. She has to be on her guard not let her in too far. How dare she? The presumptuous assumption that it's Sawyer doing all the work and she none.

"I'll try to remember that Dr. Phil, if and when I see him," she snaps. Bites her teeth together, rises up to collect the empty plates. Needs to do something else than sit and listen to the little bone-sure Yoda here. Knows there is a hard kernel of truth in what she says. That hunger in him, the strange lack of self worth, and then how he shines up, how he comes to life when you show him a little kindness. Some remnant of that little boy he once was, how that kind of unconditional love must have been ripped away from him.

She's ashamed now, the way she'd spoken to him earlier. Such a waste of time, such an idiotic use of a few precious minutes, hearing his voice. Should have been kind. Ought to have told him how it really is. With her. How when it comes to him, the choice was taken a long time ago, perhaps with that first kiss or that very first encounter. And she doesn't care how, why, or when or if it'll ever really work out. She should have stopped being such a jelly-kneed coward, should have just told him, how she feels. _What she wants._

The little kitchen, she puts the plates in the basin, puts the plug in at the base and fills the it up with water. Cold and pleasant against her hands. Takes a sponge from the shelf above it, worn and scrounged together, almost disintegrating in her hand. This is a house where you don't waste money. Ni Luh appearing behind her.

"You don't have to do that. You'll embarrass Wayan."

"Sorry," she mumbles but she doesn't put the detergent down. Squeezes out a little green pearl on the sponge. Taking comfort in this everyday task. Makes her think that things can be 'normal' again. She won't always have to run. "Ni Luh, if you know what he has planned for us all next, I'd appreciate being let in on it."

"Manado. The plan is to get you there."

"That's really great to know." Can't help the snippety sarcasm.

"For now, the plan is to sell the ship. Put money on a little island resort, maybe build up a few bungalows. Good for diving up there."

"And me, how do I fit into this plan? It'd be the same. A tourist would spot me and we'd be screwed again."

"You won't be there." So, she's not included in these fantastic plans. Stumped and a little hurt. "You'll have to find another place to live. A village, somewhere away from the tourists. There is this little place I know, I told Mr. Herbert about it. A fishing village, you could live well there."

"Oh… " It all makes sense. But the idea of living alone. Without him. Might as well disappear, run off on her own.

"Oh don't worry. We'd all be within reach. We'd come see you, weekends, evenings. Keep an eye on you and the…"

A little house. _Her and her little trespasser. _If she's lucky, it could be like that. Ni Luh resolutely takes the sponge and a dirty plate out of her hands, dumping them into the water. A hand, firm and strong around her upper arm, coaxing her away from the dishes.

"And if you asked him, I'm sure he'd stay with you too." And she's so certain, Kate can't do anything but envy her. Would be nice to be so sure about something.

"I don't know how to do that..."

"Just _ask_. Learn to give and take a little, God... you two are strange people." _Just ask, novel idea._ And what if he were to agree? What if he'd feel forced to stay with her. Knows he carries a truckload of remorse for Clem and Cassie. He'd want to avoid repeating that at any cost."Look, either just ask him or you simply will have to prepare yourself for a very long, lonely life."

A knock on the open doorframe, someone craning her neck, peeking inside.

"Hallo…? You in there, Kate?"

Recognizes the voice first, placing the plate immediately on the table. Her feet flat against the floor, ready to leap. Dewi. Glossy hair brushing her shoulders, as if nothing had ever happened, as if they're still friends. That silky dress, spotless, skimming her lanky frame. Her first instinct is to attack her, to throw herself across the room at her, tear her to pieces.

"You?" Upper lip drawn back in a way that she is aware of how stupid she must look. As if she's about to set her teeth in the other woman. Ni Luh, holding onto her arm. She knows nothing about all of that, but it must be evident even to her how thin the line between civilities and downright assault is.

"You made it… it all worked out." Dewi smiles at her, pretending not to have noticed Kate's sneer. Her tightly controlled smile with the even rows of little perfect pearly teeth. Wonders how far it went between her and James back then. Can't imagine him holding back - she's a beauty, there is no question about it.

"What are you doing here?" She feels unattractive and dumpy in her muddy jeans, her shapeless sundress over it. Of course, Sawyer had arranged this together with her. They'd probably put their clever heads together over a candle lit dinner, charm and easy smiles shooting across the table.

And the sudden vision of her white long limbs entangled around him, makes her head hurt, sharp, as if someone had stabbed her at the temple. His lips, how they'd move across her skin. No, no he wouldn't and she's just going insane. _Hormones. _It must be.

It's stupid but she wonders if he'd called Dewi right after their phone conversation. A little hope blossoming. Maybe after he'd had a few moments to digest it. Please let him be there, wherever they're going, waiting for her, let him. Needs to know. Needs to shove him up against a wall and force a definite answer out of him. _Are they over? _Is he over her?

"James sent me," she says. _But of course he did. _"You need to get your things, we're moving you to a safer place. I have my car parked up the street."

"What safer place?"

"James changed his mind," a loud theatre whisper, a glance at Ni Luh. "Thought you'd be safer somewhere else. This is kind of crowded, lots of people could spot you."

Ni Luh looking from Dewi to Kate, out of her element when the authority is so obviously snagged away from her. Dewi turns towards the living room, Kate and Ni Luh following her out.

"What's going on here? This is not what he told me. She is supposed to sleep here and go back to the boat tomorrow." Ni Luh stands up, brushing down her blouse, straightening her skirt. She lifts her chin, defiant and fierce, the way she stands there, like a stone statue, staring Dewi down. But Dewi is a different species, it drips off her, like water off a duck. She shrugs and it's hard not to feel mollified by her beauty, the way she moves calmly through a room, as if she owns it.

"Well, change of plan. The police is still snooping around, it won't be possible to leave tomorrow."

"They're still on the ship?" Ni Luh sighs, a hand, small and dainty across her forehead. "What are we going to do with the guests? They won't be happy about it."

"We'll have to compensate them somehow," Kate says. She must cost Hugo a lot more than she's worth. All the money they've pulled in on this trip, fluttering away, wasted because of her. If they don't make it back to Jakarta in time, they'll have to book new airline tickets for all of the guests as well, probably put them up in a luxury hotel in the meantime. Her fault. All her fault. And if it weren't for her little passenger, she'd have taken off. On her own. But it scares her now, she wouldn't know what to do if something were to go wrong. Collects her bag and the little ice box from off the floor near the couch, hating this, depending on everyone's goodwill. But she's in no position to refuse.

"I'll take over from here. You can go back if you want to." Dewi nods somewhat condescendingly towards Ni Luh, adding something else in Indonesians.

"I will think of something. But, I'm just not sure about this…" Ni Luh studies Dewi, hands on her waist like a little strong super hero, biting her lip, clearly a little uneasy about this sudden change of plans. "It's just that Mr. Herbert, well Mr. James… Here, let me borrow your phone. I want to talk to him first, make sure I didn't misunderstand this."

Kate pulls the cell phone up from her pocket, handing it over without thinking. She watches as Ni Luh dials, standing half turned away from them, eyes stubbornly on Dewi who is noticeably impatient with the whole thing. It's so quiet, even the little girl sits there as if spellbound by Dewi's movie star looks. They can hear the signals go through. But no answer, he's not picking up. Probably done with her for now. Or for good.

Dewi snatches the phone back, drops it in her handbag and takes Kate by the hand as if she were a disobedient toddler. Sawyer must have re-thought the whole plan, must have figured that Ni Luh could not offer adequate protection and made alternative arrangements. As miffed as she is about it all, all of these clever schemes being crafted without her knowledge, and whatever his true motivations might be, she knows he won't risk her safety. She can put her trust in that if nothing else.

"He won't pick up, he'll be busy. The police might still be on the ship." Kate doesn't like it at all, the fact that Dewi knows more than she does. Wants to ask her the details but it's humiliating to be like this, Just a package, dead weight passed around, part of a bigger plot the clever people have put together. "Come along Kate, we must leave now, this place isn't safe."

Ni Luh's mouth half open, prepared to protest some more.

"It's alright Ni Luh. It'll be alright. Thank you so much… And Wayan…" Says her goodbyes to Wayan and her daughter as well before she lets herself be led away. Ni Luh stands there in the doorway looking at the two of them when they pass through the courtyard.

"Okay. Don't forget your shot... and I guess, I'll see you tomorrow. If the coast is clear, we have to leave for Jakarta."

She adds something, muttering what sounds like an order to Dewi in Indonesian, a mother dishing out a warning to her wayward child. Dewi smiles, that shimmering smile, tossing her hair back. Like a fashion model, completely out of place in this little hovel.

"Sure. We'll be there. Good evening."

...

How the hell can he take care of her when she won't let him?

Sawyer turns the sound off and slams his ridiculously small cell phone on the table. Shitty little thing, hardly big enough for an elf. Kate, damn, she is a piece of work. Ain't no one can piss him off quite as efficiently as her. The thing with Pieter, the cops and the set up, he doesn't know why he hadn't brought her in on it. Can't explain it, how he'd wanted to show her, prove to her that he's more than capable of taking care of her. That he could be enough. _But this,_ galloping out of control, her reaction the polar opposite of what he had expected. Damn, he's done everything for her. Served her a solution on a neat little platter. Doesn't get it, her furious need for independence, always fighting him..

Henry sits silently across from him, eyes glued on the ship there at the end of the pier. They're both drinking beer after beer and keeping a watch on the police, trying to figure out what the heck is taking them so damn long. They have been occupying the same table for hours, a good look-out spot at the beach bar just above the stretch of harbor where their ship, Merdeka lies anchored. A table just behind a large banyan tree down in the sand, wild orchids clinging to the tree trunk, right above their heads. It's late now, mosquitoes starting to come out. The wind not enough to keep them from buzzing around his ears.

He could really need a smoke right about now. It's inhumane, having to sit and watch as those yahoo's fine-comb the old boat. They've probably got forensics there taking fingerprints and everything, damned if he knows how they deal with drug cases down here, but it has him jittery as hell. Not quite knowing what they're looking for or what they might find. His left leg shaking under the table, wishes he could stop it. He's got about a million little nicotine pads on but that's not the point. He needs to smoke, needs to still his hands with something. Head pounding, stomach churning. The bringing the cops here, it has potential but it could also go horribly wrong. He's been out of the loop for quite some time and this conning the Balinese police and some South African sleaze bag, it just ain't his specialty.

Kate. _Damn it,_ he shouldn't have been so harsh to her. His only excuse, how fucking tired he is and how his nerves flaps like shredded paper strips in the wind. This whole thing, her and the kid, like trying to run with a goddamn boulder tied around his throat. And it shouldn't be so darn impossible to sort this out, talk about it like grown-ups. But they have a history of fucking things up, wrecking havoc on every real conversation he's ever attempted with her. This is the norm, not the exception.

"What did she want?" Henry, dangling a drink stick over his beer. Like a wizard's wand, probably thinks he can turn himself into a prince, the sorry sucker. Face only a mother could love under gun threat. Come to think of it, Sawyer could really need some fucking magic himself right now.

"Mind your own beeswax," he snaps, nerves making him superbly cranky.

Almost feels bad for Henry, the way he looks trampled and hurt, sipping his beer to have something to do. Not his fault it's all fucked up.

"Jeez, damned if I know, wants me to get the fuck out of _'her'_ business."

"Too late for that…" Henry's square, pasty jowls moving as he speak, a little sinister smile that surprises Sawyer. " Cause dude, you've already been in her 'business'."

"Hey _watch_ it buddy!" Wants to add something to the effect of; _'that's my something-something you're talking about'_, but it dies right there with the realization of how preposterous that notion is. _She ain't his. _Never has been, never will be by the look of it. They're like two imbeciles from alien worlds, the way they can never just talk, can't get across to each other. A little pothole in the road sends the whole damn equipage crashing – every time. What the _fuck _are they going to do with a kid on top of that? Would surely end up road-kill as well, poor little bastard.

"Hey Boss," Henry's face softening, the smile disappearing. "Why don't you just go get her? She might as well sleep at the Empire. The cops won't come there. There is nothing linking the ship to the hotel..."

"No, hell no, are you off your fucking rocket?" Wants to say that he can't take any such risks, but the idea sinks in. He can see it, can feel it, _how it might be._ How he'd go get her, could jet over there right now. Could take her somewhere, to some shitty hotel.

And they wouldn't even try talking like adults, wouldn't talk at all. He'd do the only thing he's any fucking good at apart from scamming and lying. The only way he knows how to make things better – _with her._ Would undress her, fast and furious. Would slide things off, slip others down. Bundle her onto bed, that new plumpness, and the juicy curves. The rest would be slow and unhurried. Would kiss her doubts away, and his too. He'd lie to her, promise her they are going to be just dandy, that everything will be alright and that all they've got to do is stay in bed all day and never, ever talk about anything again.

He comes around to Henry impatiently snapping his fingers in front of his face.

"_Hey_, you in there dude?" Examines him as one might study a mental patient, wondering if he's about to crack. Tries to shove away the thoughts of her undressed, lying on a white sheet, hair in a mess, mellow and relaxed instead of combatant and obnoxious. Maybe they could make it work. If both of them were to permanently lose the ability to speak. _Maybe then._

Pieter has long since been led away in handcuffs by a stout plain-clothed police officer. What worries him is how they linger, how they must be going through the entire ship with a magnifying glass. He damn well hopes he hasn't left anything behind. Her papers or his, he'd tried to clear away everything he could think of before he left the ship; bank documents, everything, anything that could lead back to them. Staff instructed to point out Captain Maf'ud as their boss, under the incentive of a promised bonus at the end of the day.

But it's the phone call from her that has him rattled, not the search party on the ship. He misses a simpler time, when he didn't care at all. When he'd been blissfully unaware of how much life could suck. The only thing on his mind back in those days; money, women and revenge. Simple, clear goals. Doesn't know anything anymore. One second he wants to run to her, the next; from.

"They're going to want to talk to the owner of the ship. Are you sure we shouldn't just walk down there, introduce ourselves?" Henry's anxiety makes him itch too. Did he really manage to move everything away? He might have left something.

_Too damn old for this bullshit._

"_Nah,_ let Captain Grumpypants deal with it. Christ knows I'm paying him enough."

"You trust them? This cook and the captain?" Henry, wipes at an invisible beer moustache. Does he trust them? No, _hell _no. But he'd been in a tight spot, a choice between lying down with the darn dog and accept the fleas as part of the bargain or pull off the whole deed solo.

"Cook, crook, Captain Hook, fuck knows what the damn difference is. Ain't like we've got plenty of options" One of the police fellows come down the pier, stops to talk to someone, looks like one of the kitchen boys. Tries telepathy, sending a message to them, if God forbid they should forget who is padding their wallets. _Don't fucking mention her. Don't._ "I ain't overjoyed about teaming up with that fancy boy Rasputin though. Danan's screwed us over before, he'll do it again if the price is right."

"So…? What do we do, we bring him in, promise more cash? Keep the dude close."

"Yeah, something like that I reckon. Need to hook one around Dewi too. Slippery like snot on an eel that one."

He's got to sort this out, wrap it up. But the phone conversation, it keeps bugging him, butting in. That miserable, fucked-up exchange of words, saying nothing, just hurting each other. And those cops on the ship, probably snooping around in her underwear drawer this very moment, they better not find anything.

"So Henry boy, looks like we're gonna' need a brand new identity for her. All that shit is blown to pieces. Again…"

She'd been right. It'd be exhausting to follow her around on the run, even this little adventure is threatening to wipe him out completely. Doesn't want his help, and why the hell does she have to make such a big freaking deal about it? The least he could do. The only thing. Feeling wretchedly useless.

"Sure, but it will take a little while, you guys better find somewhere to hang out before I arrange." Henry looks pale, he hasn't got the stomach for dealing with the police and this framing business seems to have been a little too much even for his lax ethical standards.

"Ain't no need for the whole married couple crap again. Just her papers okay, maybe it'll be easier to arrange."

"_Seriously_...? No? I mean with the…?"

"With _what_? That thing was a goddamn jinx." _The rings, everything,_ it could have been good and they blew it. " Just fix her up, alright."

"Hey, looks like they're done over there." Lifts his chin towards the pier. The both turn to see how the cops throw some bag into a police car and seem to shake hand with Captain Maf'ud. And he feels a whole lot better once the car has driven off on the little dirt road away from the pier. "Good thing your guests haven't arrived back from their trip yet. Can't be good marketing to have a drug bust on your ship huh dude?"

"Not optimal no…" The beer, he's on his fifth. Might as well, he won't sleep tonight, he knows that already. Won't sleep easily until she's back on the boat and well off on her way to Jakarta again. The intrusion of that thought again, naughty and sly, tempting him; 'go, go and see her'. Could be wrapped in her arms in no time. Half an hour tops to get to her, back again, bundle her into his room at the Empire. _Fuck being smart,_ to hell with caution. Wants her.

"So, the ship. I've contacted some potential buyers. You'll meet up in Jakarta, go through the details."

"Never mind. Just has to be done fast. You've got the authorization and all for that buddy?"

"Yeah, it ought to be enough with the letter of attorney Mr. Reyes left behind. By the way this came. From the doctor. Her tests."

Henry slips one of those brown manila envelops over the crude wooden table. Something of faux old-time spy over the whole gesture. The looking around himself nervously while shuffling it towards Sawyer. A scratchy noise when his finger nail rasps against the table.

How it scares him. How a simple brown envelop can put the fear of God in him. He's not cut out for this. Anything to delay the inevitable, doesn't want to open that. Really doesn't want to know. He waves for the waiter to get him a pack of cigarettes.

"Hey, I thought you gave that up." Henry, a little disappointed wrinkle between the eyes when the guy comes back with a pack of those local sticks of hay and his change. "That didn't last very long dude."

"One day too long." He tears the carton open, and picks one out. Fingers shaking when he lights it. Like an old druggie. "Just stay out of my hair."

Doesn't know why he quit in the first place. Idiotic. As if giving up on smoking might make him ready to be a father, as if that alone might make him a better man. He's got no business pretending to be anything but what he is. A full-fledged, certified deadbeat of a lowlife. Pities that little squid for having been cursed with his shitty DNA. At the most he might inherit a couple of money winning dimples and a full set of hair, at the worst some seriously homicidal tendencies from both sides. _Poor little shit._

"Aren't you gonna' open it?" Henry nodding at the envelop, the lucky sonofabitch. Bet he never knocked anybody up. Bet he's always played it smart, probably never broken any fucking hearts either. And Sawyer knows, what's in the envelop is bound to break both his and hers. Sooner or later.

"What does it say?" Places two fingers on top of it and slides it back towards Henry, nonchalantly, as if he can't be bothered. Glancing at a group of tourists passing by on the beach walk. A bunch of girls in light cotton dresses. Wants Henry to deal with it. Wants a guarantee. Not regarding the kid, doesn't care all that much – but for her. Figures God owes her one, the stingy old bastard. _And shit. Shit._ He can't do this. She can't expect him to.

Henry isn't obliging, he shoves the envelop right back at Sawyer. A silly game of ping-pong.

"Well it's right there dude!" A sharp index finger, stabbing at it. "Why don't you just read it yourself? I don't know anything about these chick things."

Loud and clear. You're on your own, sucker, no two ways about 's suffocating him. The sense of having a plastic bag drawn over your head and tightened.

He stabs the cigarette out, half smoked. Can't make up his fucking mind about anything, not about the smoking, not about her, not even about opening a goddamn envelop. He tears the side off, sends a big brown piece of paper flying out of his hand. Pretends to read it, making a show of scanning the pages, holding it up so that the soft light, like little Christmas lamps in the tree above them hits it right. Can't read it. Doesn't want to.

"I'm no damn doctor, this ain't telling me nothing."

Fuck. He's getting old. Too old to be sitting on a beach in Bali, drinking beer, having to read some medical mumbo-jumbo and worry about a fugitive with commitment issues. No that's right; he is the one with the issues now. Maybe he's just not ready for her crap. He wouldn't put it past her to pop out the kid and disappear, leaving him with the diapers and shit. He could totally imagine how that would go down. Can see himself sneaking out the backdoor too. All that bullshit about Karma, how he ought to put things right, there just isn't a chance in hell he could ever do that. He'd mess things up, he'd rip someone's heart out any which way he chooses to turn. Maybe it's better he lets them all down; Cassie's kid, Kate and that, whatever he's supposed to call it. It. If you're going to be an asshole, you might as well be consistent.

Henry takes mercy on him, picks it up with a sigh, a veritable martyr, the way he wrinkles his forehead and reads earnestly, holding it gingerly between index finger and thumb.

"Fifteen weeks… and the work up, the conclusion says she has a blood thing, some antibody-thingy I don't know… needs to keep it from clotting. Nothing strange. Just keep it flowing."

Fifteen weeks. Just a figure. Doesn't make his heart flutter or images of cute baby feet magically appear. Too abstract, too weird. It still doesn't concern him, just a medical condition she has, just like the stuff with her blood. Doesn't make him feel anything at all, only mild surprise over the fact that it's been all of fifteen weeks since that morning on the daybed.

A morning that still has him wanting to gasp for air. The two of them, making love. Not fucking. Frighteningly sentimental, the slow pace, the delicious mellowness of moving inside of her, barely awake in the early morning sunlight. And that it would have happened then, stars aligning, fortunes converging at just that precise moment. Maybe there are worse ways a kid could be conceived. Perhaps there are worse accidents.

God knows, he can think of a few.

Instantly regrets his shitty behavior earlier, the snarkiness, it hadn't been necessary. Not her fault, none of it. She must be so scared too, the lashing out just part and parcel of her. Anger instead of tears, that's how she's always been. Can never just tell him she is freaked out. He gropes his pocket for the cell phone, a few missed calls from her. Not like her to be persistent, to pester him. That's normally his place. He punches in her number, as fast as he can, clumsy fingers barely able to hit the buttons. Won't think it through. Will go and get her goddamn it, will bring her somewhere for the night. Figure out where to go from there, he owes her that much. But her phone is turned off. Will try again later, or wait for Ni Luh to come back, give him the address.

She better be safe right now, sweet like a gum drop, all tucked up in the pad of Ni Luh's pal, a mug of cocoa and a nightlight on her bedside table. And Pieter, ought to be securely booked into the Bali Hilton by now with a bunch of over-friendly cell mates. Imagines they don't treat the druggies too well in prison here. Not too upset about it either, to tell the truth.

"How the hell do I do that, fix the blood crap?" Can't really concentrate on the report, can't sit here and reminiscent about cream skin and freckles either.

"You? The doctor already prescribed some blood thinners…. Oh… wow." Henry holds a little square card up, sallow face lightening up considerably.. "You wanna' take a gander at this one."

Stretches it towards him, nodding enthusiastically as Sawyer snaps it up knowing already that whatever it is, he isn't going to want anything to do with it. A grainy black and white thing. Bones like a fish. A profile, a rounded head. Skeleton hands.

"Oh fuck." He breaks out into sweat, flushed with it, his face burning. "Oh fuck it all. That what I think it is?"

"Yep. Cute little nipper – looks just like you."

"Take a goddamn hike Henry-boy." Tries to take it in. Still not feeling anything. What's he supposed to do with this? Too real. Bad enough when it was only she and he, complicated enough. And now this. Her, him and that stupid, stupid picture. Why do people even keep shit like that, it hardly even looks human.

"So, how does it feel to be a daddy, Pops?" Henry chipper and in excruciatingly good spirits all of a sudden. Damn happy it isn't him sitting there with a sonogram in his greasy fingers.

"You can stop gushing now asswipe. Gotta' be off." Stands up so fast his chair falls backwards in the sand. A waiter scurrying to stand it up again.

Damn picture. You must be a complete sap to call it cute. Nevertheless, he can't chuck it away now. He'd look like a heartless jerk. Later, he thinks and slips the fishbone picture in his back pocket.

Captain Maf'ud comes walking down the pier, spots them though God knows how, must have eyes like a goddamn hawk. He sets aim in their direction, long skinny legs, elking across the beach. Sawyer sweeps the remnants of his beer standing upright, wiping the condense off his hand on the side of his jeans. Feeling sick, beer splashing around in an otherwise empty belly, and Henry there, shining like a goddamn sun. Takes the lab results and the medical stuff, though he'd rather just leave it there on the table or shove it up Henry's ass, and run like an idiot, away from it all. How he'd ever thought that her pregnant was even remotely amusing is a mystery. Just goes to show what a big fucking moron he is.

"Good evening Cappie." Salutes the captain as he shoulders his way past. Have a drink with old Henry before the guests come back."

…

Moves on up north, a brisk stroll along the beach-walk. The fish bone kid has him thinking the weirdest things. Feeling like such goddamn cliché, the perfect example of an irresponsible douchbag. He's failed at this fatherhood thing before, has no desire to find out how thoroughly he could suck at it a second time. Cassie's girl. He really ought to make it right. Only he has no idea how to accomplish that without letting Kate down, betraying her, abandoning her and her spawn instead. Like choosing between pest and cholera.

Danan is waiting in another bar, as agreed, hair slicked neatly to his skull tonight. And in this light he wouldn't' be out of place in Casablanca or some other good old movie. Lean and tall, the kind of coolness that Sawyer can't even imitate. Danan barely raises an eyebrow in recognition, a swift tilt of the chin towards the bar stool next to him. Sawyer hauls up another envelop, the one he's got tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He slaps it against the bar disk.

"Your mullah." Wants to get out of there as quick as possible. Go back to the hotel room and get shit-faced on that bottle of fine Irish Malt he's got stashed away for emergencies. But his conversation with Henry lingers. He can't just let Danan float off, needs to keep him close. And the weight of that photo, like lead in his pocket.

"You get the rest after you plant that tip tomorrow."

"Another satisfied customer, just what I like." Danan shines up at the sight of the envelop, as he ought to. That's a whole lot of cash for a tiny little job like this. "So spotted in Lovina? That's still the plan?"

"I ain't fussy, cook up what you wanna' as long as those damn boys with their sniff-dogs are lured as far away from her as possible."

"No problem. That ought to send them off track long enough to get her out of here."

He's drinking some girly drink shit tonight, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. Guess money will do that to a man. This kind of man, they're birds of one feather. The drink, a Margarita, the salt crystals licked off on one side of the long stemmed glass, the other side glimmering under the spot light like a million little diamonds.

Orders a Scotch. Poured over ice cubes, rich flowing liquid and golden like a reward – never mind that he hasn't eaten anything proper all day. Has deserved a goddamn drink. Feels like patting himself on the back, 'cause damn it, nobody else does. Her, pissed, hissing like a goddamn rattlesnake, hell, a little gratitude wouldn't be amiss.. At least he'd gotten her out of harm's way, had set her up with some meds and had gotten her checked over. Fifteen frigging weeks. A picture, God's idea of a prank. His and hers – the worst possible combination of genes in any but the most superficial he thinks that once the dust settles and if, in the remote possibility that this one goes down without tragedy, he'll damn well take all the credit for it.

"Went down pretty darn close to plan today." Wants to just sit here and enjoy his drink for a moment, not think of anything. Can't even blink too long, the grainy black and white image superimposed inside his eyelids. His. Like having a rhino park its big fat ass on his chest. Can't breathe. Coughs into his hand, trying to cover up the panic attack threatening to plunge its claws into him. Not now, not in front of Danan. Shit. His. He can't do this. The running, that's her department, but he has a newfound comprehension for the need. The liberating idea of just ditching everything and setting off into the unknown. No obligations, no responsibilities except for himself.

"I always deliver, old man." Self satisfied. Dressed in a black silk shirt. Still with the little Indian collar thing. Makes him feel like a big sweaty oaf next to him but he fixes his eyes on him. A focal point, trying to bring himself into a semblance of balance. Tries to breathe in and out, get past the anxiety, act normal. Be a fucking man.

"Yeah, well technically your gal' Friday is the one who delivered." Hah. Swab that smug grin off his face. What had Boy George done? Put in a phone call or two, hung out in some sleazy bar collecting the cash while Dewi had worked her ass off, that's it.

"Yeah, she's good with the boyhoy's, Dewi…" Danan, holds the envelop carelessly between two fingers. Waving with it while he speaks. "Hey, worked you fine too as I remember."

"You've got your facts wrong, asswipe. She never 'worked' me."

"Nah, I guess she must have gotten her fill of geriatrics already." Smiles like an angel. Thinks he's so darn clever. But Sawyer knows something else. That shirt ain't new, and those shoes have seen better days. This guy is strung out. "So… old man, what are you going to do now? Off into the sunset with the beautiful maiden?"

"You looking for a goddamn fairytale ending, you better look elsewhere Primrose. Ain't no one riding into the sunset with anybody here." It comes out far too genuine, cutting it much too close for comfort. Looks away, uncomfortable with the unwanted intimacy of it, sharing a drink with that guy. His eyes accidentally landing on the bar, a mirror behind rows of bottles. His own face reflected next to a bottle of Curacao, tired and rough. Needs a shave and a shower. Needs to sleep.

"Would have wanted to see her. You know… clear some things up." To his surprise the other man straightens up his shoulders, the faux arrogance sliding off his face like butter off a hot pan. He knows this so well. Like watching a finer version of himself. The snide superiority put aside for something real. "I've regretted it, many times."

"Well, I ain't your goddamn confessor. 'Sides, you barely know the girl, what the hell is it to you?" Brushes him off. Who does he think he's talking to? Hadn't had any second thoughts when he'd arranged the kidnapping of Claire and her kid. Must have known how much that little bugger meant to Kate.

"Maybe so… but we were friends. That part was no lie."

"Yeah right. A friend you saw fit to screw six ways till Sunday. 'Sides, I don't think she'd treat your nose any better than I did and you really can't afford another facial re-arrangement."

Leers at pretty boy's nearly perfect profile, satisfied when the elegant narrow hand reaches up to touch it, before he finds himself. Set up. But it slides off him, it doesn't stick, the way he shrugs.

"I guess you're right Cowboy. A fine pair you are, brutal maniacs both of you. You do deserve one another." Lifts his glass up, twirling it around ninety degrees to lick the salt off the other side. A move that looks calculatedly seductive. Well, hell, it ought to work fine on some. Finds himself memorizing it, noting it down for future reference. Knowing damn well, there isn't a chance in hell, he could pull off a similar stunt.

"We ain't together." Doesn't know why he says it, he hardly owes him any answers. Wants to tell the snooty prick to go fly a kite and can't for the life of him understand why he doesn't.

"Hah, well that's nothing but semantics..." Sets the glass down and like last time, Sawyer watches him with a fascination, a professional respect for the superb perfection of his skill. That finger on the rim of the glass, it's so practiced, he hardly knows he's doing it.

"I don't know why you idiots fight it… and I certainly don't know what she sees in your obsolete macho-man act." Shakes his hair back though it's so slicked it wouldn't move in a hurricane. "But I know you're bound to hook up in a spectacularly dysfunctional manner sooner or later. Just a matter of time, Redneck."

"How do you know nitwit?" He finds himself staring at the man. Trying to see beyond the golden cleverness, the naughty wittiness. How the fuck can he say something like that? Wants to shake the guy up, demand proof. How does he know?

"'Because you're like jelly for her. That unattractive quivering for her approval, to be somebody to her. Can't decide if it's cute or repulsive." Sees right through him and well, he'll be the first to admit it, it's hardly rocket science. It's all there, plain and clear, he's not hiding it. "I'm leaning towards 'romantic', tough guy."

"Yeah well, it ain't gonna' go down like that anyhows. It'll never work…" Leans on the bar, both elbows on it, stares down into his drink like an old wino. He's the one who ends up confessing. It's all those beer he's been drinking all afternoon, topped up with a Scotch. He's not thinking clearly.

"Nope, probably not, but I've never seen two violent misfits as hung up on each other as you two." Rubs his own earlobe, elbow on the bar imitating Sawyer. As if they're good old pals sharing an after work drink. "So what is it?"

"What is what? And what the fuck do you care?" _That mealy-mouthed asswipe._

"Humor me. What's your trite little excuse? Want her but you don't want all that comes with? Not sure you're man enough to hang on to her? Or just plain old commitment fobia?"

The camp hand on a slack wrist like a good old queen, it tugs at the edges of Sawyer's mouth how he talks a mile a minute.

"Yep, in a nutshell buddy. All of the above." Sniggers into his beer glass. Almost feels like a human again sitting there with Danan as if they are good old friends.

"Hey, you don't look quite as much like a washed-up old hick when you smile." A flutter of eyelashes, toying with him. Hell, if he was still in the grifter business he'd so team up with this freak show. And it's on an impulse that the next thing falls from his mouth.

"Hey fancy pants, you want a job?"

"Depends on what you've got in mind cowboy."

"You like sports Gatsby? I just became short on a diving instructor."

Turns his profile up at Sawyer. Just showing off, that sort of perfection, it's sickening and in this light Sawyer's own handiwork is hardly visible. Sips his drink and raises his hand at someone behind Sawyer. Resists the urge to turn around.

"No diving I'm afraid, old phobias being under the water and all that… but I might teach your rich old ladies a thing or too about sipping Daiquiri's in the sunset, smoking cigarillos with a mouth piece perhaps... Snorkeling maybe, tops – if you insist."

He swallows a chortle. Hell, he can't help like the guy. Doesn't mean he trusts him, but that old saying; keep your friends close and your enemies yadayada, there is some truth to it. Besides, he'd keep a good eye on her in turn. He knows it, that part, Danan's affection for her, it isn't fake.

"Okay, you're on. You're hired." Shoots his chin out towards him, looking down his nose chugging down the last of his Scotch. Danan feigns astonishment, as if he's unexpectedly been nominated Miss Universe.

"You sure? I just told you I don't dive. I'm not going to try learning either so why would you want me cowboy?" Snooty, sticking his own chin up.

"You seem like a swell fellow." Perfect. The guy fucks them all and he offers him a job. Maybe that's Karma. Tit for tat. Good for evil, around and around again.

"Nah… that's not it…" Studies him, eyes squinting, making eyelashes meet in the middle, like spider legs sliding in between each other. Shit, he doesn't appreciate being scrutinized like that. How he purses his lips in a way that a girl might have found irresistible, or the right kind of man. Index finger suddenly pointed like a gun against Sawyer's heartless chest, tapping his shirt repeatedly.

"You old hick …I know what _this_ is!"

"What the fuck do _you_ know?" he grumbles, uneasy, wants to shove him away. Get away from his disapproval. And why it should matter what a traitor like Danan accuses him of, he can't answer. Only that it does. And fancy-schmancy boy slides off his bar stool, takes another small step forward, gets up in Sawyer's face. The eyes, they don't become any less intimidating up close. Who the hell has eyes like that? Must be lenses, it ain't normal. Like some kind of devil's spawn.

"You... you're _ditching_ her, you jerk!" Stabbing at him with that stupid finger. "You want little old me to come along and baby-sit her, wipe her tears and scrape her up from the floor while you sneak off!"

Turns his head away and Danan takes a step back. Hates this guy. Hates him. Maybe. Yeah, maybe the thought had crossed his mind. If she had someone, somebody to take care of her. A friend. Maybe. They'd all be better off.

"You have no intention of staying with her, do you?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet Metro."

"Ha, you're just looking for excuses. Mr. Macho manly-man, scared out of your manly-man pants because of a little bun." The long hands, swooping, making a mocking pregnant belly shape over his own. And there is such a staggering amount of judgment in that simple gesture, Sawyer can feel it blasting a hole right through him.

"Just pack your bag buddy. Ship leaves tomorrow, as soon as the tide is high enough." Waves impatiently to the barman, pays for both of their tabs and picks up the medical records envelop from the counter. He's got to get out of here.

"I haven't said yes yet." Danan, head cocked to the side. Knows he's got the thumbscrews on him, the advantage of being detached. Sawyer has nothing to beat him back with except for the hunch that he's a man living on his last cent.

"You will." He turns to walk away and he already knows, Danan won't let him leave with the last word. A matter of pride.

"Hey… She deserves a lot better than that."

Considers letting his knuckles get reacquainted with the rude fucker's jaw. What does he know, what the hell does he know about anything? Squeezes the rolled up envelop in his hand until it folds midway.

"Don't I fucking know it," he mutters, not sure Danan can hear him, keeps on walking anyway. Somehow certain he'll take Sawyer up on the job offer. That snooty sonofabitch will be good for her, make her feel a little less alone when… Not that he has been able to decide yet. But he figures it can't hurt.

"Toodeloo then Cowboy." A cat-call behind his back, aimed at humiliating him in front of the other patrons of the bar. Not that Sawyer gives a fuck.

…

Returns in the direction of the hotel, that bottle of Malt in his room beckoning. Strolls down in the sand. Heavier and harder to walk in, but he enjoys it, how it reminds him of the island, the salty breeze from the ocean, how his hair is ruffled by the wind. Half expecting to see her sitting there knees drawn up turning that little metal toy plan over and over in between her fingers. Maybe he should have called her back, ought to have picked up the phone. But there is something about how the fishbone baby weighs him down, how catastrophically far from alright they are. That thing, if it even survives at all, it'll be doomed from the beginning.

And if he were to call her now, if he were to go fetch her now, then what? At the very best they might screw. Not that he couldn't need it; hasn't gotten laid in what seems like forever, well hell, not since she broke his damn heart. Then again, at worst, they'd be forced to talk, to take some hard decisions and he's too tired. To wound up. He'd fuck things up even worse, if that's even remotely possible.

Tired, the tension giving way to exhaustion. All in a day's work. Druggie put away, police dealt with, new identity ordered, snide crook paid off, girl in a safe house, baby skeleton picture in pocket. Check.

Decides on a whim to pass by the ship, see Ni Luh, make sure everything is going smoothly. Wants to see how Captain K'nuckles and Mario are doing too, do a little debriefing of the day's events. Hear if the Danes and the Muellers are giving them any grief, maybe have dinner with them all to lighten the load a little. No. That's all lies, excuses. The ultrasound image, burning in his pocket like radioactive material. A sudden unprecedented yearning to talk, hash it all out with Ni Luh. Wants to show that picture to someone who won't be glib about it, won't say it's fucking cute. Wants to hear what her idea of Karma would make of the mess he's in. That baby, unwanted, four years ago and now this. Back to haunt him, or a chance to make things right.

A little boy sidling up. One of those Balinese urchins, rare and far in between. Uncared for, grubby t-shirt and shorts, cheap rubber sandals. Reaches for Sawyer's elbow, yanking at his arm roughly. Annoying as hell, probably wants to sell him some tourist shit, make him look in his Mama's shop.

"Hello mister." Standard address for any foreigner, male or female. A pair of quick, peppercorn eyes staring up at him. Hand nabbing at his shirt sleeve again, running along to keep up. Oh hell, resists an urge to sweep him off, knock him away.

"Move along kid. Ain't in the mood to chat." Tries to shake his arm loose. _This_ - this is the kind of man he is. The type that considers cuffing a kid for being irritating. How the fuck can he be a father?

"Mister. Mister." Thrusts something into his hand and runs like a wildfire across the beach, sand bursting around his feet. Making him think of Kate that night, the night she'd attacked Dewi. Is left behind staring at a sheet of paper. Thinks it's some kind of promotion thing but somehow it's not right, it can't be.

He stops near another bar, where there are some light bulbs strung up on the corrugated metal roof. Hasn't got his glasses. It's a printout, a few words in a tiny enervating font. Saps all the strength right out of him. Or maybe it's what they say.

_Dewi._

_Damn. _They've been fucked every which way. His weakness. Likes to think he knows everything there is to know about women but it's a good deal harder to spot a female scammer. Should have known. Not a regular gold-digger. The sum she asks, so exhorbent the blood disappears from his brain, evaporates. Fuck. _Fuck. _And he's not scared, just livid with himself. How could he have been so disastrously dumb? Turns right around, so fast he makes himself dizzy. This better be a hoax.

_Danan. _They've always been a team, those two. _The sonofabitch. _He's been set up. _Again. _They must be bursting their appendixes, laughing their asses off right now. The sheer folly of trusting them. A complete and total lack of common sense.

He'll catch him. _And then_… He can't think of it but the blood thirst is real. He runs, heavy clumsy steps stirring the sand up. Runs parallel with the beach walk, trying to avoid the evening walkers, the tourists strolling by leisurely, hand in hand, gaudy Hawaii shirts and red mugs. Propels people out of his way. _Fast, fast, fast. _When he gets that sonofabitch. This time, he really will kill him. Nothing holding him back, anger growing with each step.

And he must be so goddamn sure of himself.

The arrogant asshole has moved to a seat by a table, sits there calm as milk, sipping his girly-drink. Knows he can't kill him, not before he's got her back safely. But he'll hurt him. He'll crush that jaw, pulverize it, this time.

"Not paying you enough – that it!" Grabbing him by the neck of his shirt, wants to toss him over a table, smash his skull against a wall. "That it! Money?"

"What are you on!" Ducks the best he can when Sawyer takes a swing at him, the neck of his shirt still caught in Sawyer's hand, making evasion tricky. But he's faster, leaner, finds a way to slip away, dodge the fist. "Why are we back to this?"

"You and Dewi, you _asshole_!" His breath burning in his throat and he can't really see anything. "_Kidnapping, extortion,_ sounds familiar?"

"Stop it! What _the_… I don't know what…"

Sawyer thrusts the paper in his face with his free hand. Grinds it against that fruitcake's perfect face.

"This! What the _fuck_ is this!" Danan bounding backwards, stumbling against chairs, his head, twirling from side to side, looking for a weapon. A couple moving out of their way.

"I don't know! What's wrong with you!" A defensive hand, palm held up in front of him. Not so damn cocky now. Scared.

"You don't know! You ain't gonna' need money if you're dead buddy. Tell me where she is you scum!" Shakes him, shoves him. Wants to mangle his face but something hold him back. The memory of his knuckles crunching into capillaries. A sense of loss. And Danan is quicker, smoother, wrangles his way away, takes the table like a hurdle, making it fall, crashing against Sawyer's leg. An excruciating pain shooting through his knee. And Danan's off like a damn antelope. Leaping, long limbs, feet drumming against the pavement, Sawyer's heavy steps following behind, in his heels. Into the hectic evening traffic, darting in between honking horns, motorbikes and people. Headlights blinding him.

The motorbike, sees it coming in the periphery of his vision. But he sprints out anyway. Has to catch the bastard. Can't let him get away. Somehow his limbs don't move fast enough. Not right. The speed. He flies like in a cartoon, astonished that he can soar through air like that. Interrupted by a strange screeching sound. Asphalt, gravel, burnt rubber.

A dozen faces floating above him. Bodiless like a bouquet of freakish human flowers. Able to think one thing only. Got to get up. Catch him. But he can't.

"You okay mister?"

Don't know. _Don't know. _Pain maybe. And then. _Fuck. _Nothing.

…

_Thanks so much for reading if you got this far. Having a huge confidence crisis here. Something about this chapter. I owe you something awesome after leaving you hanging so long and ugh... Hope the next chapter will be a little more action and a little less willy-nillying. Sorry if it's not much for now._


	37. Another sacrifice

_Thank you so much to those still reading and reviewing this monster sized fic. I am sorry if this is slow. Trying to puzzle the last one together. This chapter has been cut into pieces, boned out and condensed and it's still outrageously heavy and clumsy as hell. Heaving it off here and legging it. Have mercy on it. Please : ) – it can't help being ugly._

_Rated M for language and sexual content. Character death mentioned..._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, none of it..._

...

**Another sacrifice**

…

Sawyer reckons he might have passed on over. On the other side. The white silvery light, the stillness, everything points in that direction. All woozy and woolly and comfortable. But if that's the case, why the heck ain't the flames of Hell licking up and down his sinful ass?

The light is strange. Too white, too bright. Just some bastard shining a flashlight in his eyes, holding his damn lids up. A beam burning into his brain.

"Get the hell away from me." Sweeps at the hands, intrusive and insistent. It takes a few seconds for the blur to gather shapes, outlines of a ceiling emerging, lines of furniture, a window, a lamp. A person. Dressed in white with an old fashioned headlight fastened to his forehead.

The smell of disinfectant and camphor from the sheets. Almost a religious feeling to the whole set-up. The all white, clean and empty. Afterlife. Only, if it really were he reckons he wouldn't be in so much pain. Doesn't know what time or day it is or how he got here. Knows nothing, except that he's in a hospital bed with an old white-haired doctor staring down at him as if he's a peculiar little insect.

_Kate. Dewi. Danan. No. _He can't be here.

It all comes rushing back, the running across the street, the motorbike. How long has he been here? Scrambling to get up. Kate. He has to. Find her, find her doctor reaching forward, a resolute hand on his chest, pressing Sawyer right back down.

"No, no Mister. No." The doctor runs a finger in a circular movement against his own temple, shaking his head. 'Can't get up, are you are fucking insane?' that's what that gesture means. No doubt about it.

Alright then, a more covert operation will be required.

He'll wait until the old bugger has gone, and then… _What?_ Walk? He doesn't know if he can. Touches his head. A stupid bandage like a headband wrapped around his big ugly melon. How bad can it be? He's not exactly in pain. The sun is high outside, judging from the glaring light through the window. He can't stay here. Can't lie around while she is God knows where.

He has no idea what has happened to his clothes are, his phone, the wallet. No money and no shoes either. He has no choice, almost falls out of bed. Ripping a drip line right out from his arm. Uses the sheet to catch the drops of blood from the puncture wound. It isn't much and he has to leave. Will never forgive himself if it's too late.

He leaves the hospital wearing pyjamas. Just up and goes. Expecting someone to catch him when he makes his way through to busy waiting lounge but nobody bats an eye, not on the street either. They must be used barefooted foreigners staggering drunk on the sidewalks in their jammies looking like Satan's unshaved cousin. But somehow he makes it to a corner with waiting motorcycle taxis. The promise of a double fare once they reach the Emporium grants him a ride.

_Oh fucking hell. _Dewi, the money. Kate.

She better be alright. Doesn't even know what day it is, how much time has been lost. Just about to swing a foot over the back of a bike when someone grabs hold of his shoulder. The damn doctors probably, having tracked him down to haul his ass back into that hospital bed.

"No way you're getting on one of those. You're coming with me before you're run over by another thrill-seeker." Danan. And he's so feeble, he almost falls backwards into his arms. "Come on, you look like a right nutcase Cowboy."

"You wily sonofabitch!" Turns to try to take a swing at him, but stumbles and falls on the sidewalk. Like a drunkard, no coordination whatsoever.

"Yeah, that's not helping you look any saner." Danan hoists him up by the arm, slings it across his shoulders and half leads, half carries him forward. Danan's grip on him is both humiliating and comforting. He wouldn't have been able to make it more than a few yards down the street. Would probably have fallen right off that motorbike. "Come on, you really think I'd be here if I had anything to do with the kidnapping?"

"Fuck knows." Too weakened to fight it, and he knows Danan has a point. Had just wanted to blame someone, beat somebody into a pulp. Kate. The damn baby. Fuck, he should have done it all different. Pathetic how he'd held out on her, how he'd played hard to get like some sappy Jane Austen heroine.

"Come on. I'll get you back to the Emporium." Danan takes his elbow trying to lead him.

"I can damn well walk on my own," he sneers and tries to liberate his arm but takes such a tumble, he gives up.

Danan waves down a cab and helps him inside, holding a hand on his head so Sawyer doesn't bump it. Just like a cop might have done. Jumps in after him and mutters something to the driver.

Lifts his chin up and tries to focus on Danan's face but it's all wavering, blurry and moving as if they're at sea. Wants to hold on to something to stop the cab from swaying. He leans back against the headrest and closes his eyes.

"Why the hell should I trust you?"

"I told you I don't' work with Dewi anymore... You're the one who insisted I bring her in. I wouldn't have. Haven't worked with her since she got involved with that new crew..."

"Get to the fucking point." The headache comes out of nowhere. Pounces on him, kicking all the fight out of him. Wondering vaguely why he hadn't picked on this Dewi thing when Danan first told him about the break in working arrangements. It seems like highly relevant information, in hindsight.

"They're big fish, not like us. I told her they'd eat a little nobody freelancer like her up alive, that she'd be setting herself up for trouble… but well, Dewi likes money."

"Yeah, yeah, that's a cute story, but who the _fuck's_ got her?"

"I'm thinking it's her new boss, the main guy, Andrei. Heavy drugs, money-laundering, extortion, broad scope of business. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, stan-something in any case…"

"They could be Eskimoes for all I care Buster." The taxi swerves into the roundabout in front of the Emporium's entrance. "So if you know so damn much, why haven't you gotten her back?"

_Useless wimp._ And he should have had better sense himself. How the hell could he make such a rookie mistake? Get in bed with another con artist. A rather good one too by the look of it. He'd completely underestimated Dewi. Had thought she was just another gold digger, the rich Aussie hubby and all that jazz. She'd played that part pretty darn perfectly.

"I'm still looking. I might have some leads but… yeah well." Danan leans forward to pay the cab driver, opening up the door on Sawyer's side like some fancy doorman. "I don't' exactly have a lot of cash to pay people off with."

"No? Just earned a shitload on our expense. Fat good it did her too. Should have just left her with Pieter, might have been better off. " Supports himself by gripping on to the door as he rises up. A bed. Needs to lie down but he hasn't got time. Must find her. It's crunch time.

"Yeah well, I've used them up on this. On you. " Danan takes his elbows, leading him forward as if he's eighty years old. He stops by the large potted palm at the left side of the entrance door, bends over and throws up in it. Hardly anything comes out. Just a little liquid from his stomach.

"That supposed to earn you Brownie points?" Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand while Danan stands there looking thoroughly disgusted. So the boy is a little squeamish huh? But hell, it isn't pleasant, he thinks as he buckles under another wave of nausea. A newfound sympathy for Kate and the puking non-stop like a sick cat. It's not for sissies, that's for sure. "This is all your fucking fault to begin with."

"Oh is it now?" Danan stops in his tracks, lets go of Sawyer's arm, having him swaying on the top of the marble steps. "Besides, a little 'thank you' wouldn't be out of order. Who do you think footed your hospital bill? Do you think they'd have refrained from throwing your old wrinkled ass on the street of I hadn't paid up?"

Ought to say thank you, but he can't rally enough gratitude. He has to find her. God knows what might have happened to her. Her medicine, wonders if she'd brought it along. Doesn't even know what it is, if she's got enough, what happens if she doesn't take it. Probably not a good thing to be without though.

"So...How long have I've been out? How many days have you been gallivanting around playing Florence Nightingale?"

"Oh… third day today."

"Oh fuck. I have to find her." Should have looked out for her. Instead, he'd fed her to the wolves. The feeling of having overslept, disoriented and nauseous. What if it's too late? "The boat, the guests? They still docked there?"

Automatic gesture, patting down the front of his pyjama jacket for cigarettes, when he remembers he's no longer a smoker. But something there. A cardboard sheet, in the breast pocket. The ultrasound picture. Who the hell put it there? Some sentimental hospital worker who stole his clothes and money and thought this might have some value to him whatsoever. It doesn't. Just a grainy image of a skeleton. Danan's conceited grin when he spots the picture.

"You say a word, you're dead buddy," Sawyer sneers while shoving it right back into his pocket again. "So, what about the ship, still there?"

The snooty bastard turns his nose up at the question. Walking ahead of Sawyer through the lobby.

"How would I know? Your little quaint love-boat hasn't exactly been my priority these days. I've been baby-sitting you, haven't I?"

So while this toffee-nosed sonofabitch has been giving him sponge baths, those bozos have had free reign with her. It makes the hair on his neck stand up to think of it. What might have happened. Hopefully they are sane enough to realize the financial value in keeping her alive and in good health. Sawyer forces his feet to start moving, bare soles slapping against the cool marble of the corridor leading towards Hurley's office.

Fuck. She's been gone for three days. Three days. A shitload of things can go wrong in three days. A silent prayer the kidnappers have made contact with Henry and that an exchange has already been arranged.

"Let's just hope they haven't started sending little bits of fingers and ears by now."

…

Henry is in Hugo's office. He shoots up from the leather swivel chair when Sawyer comes through the door. And he knows he must look like death reheated himself, but it's damn good to see the old slob again.

"Danan, Henry." That ought to do it. Sawyer can't be bothered with any lengthy introductions, still shaky and frail. Besides, Henry already knows all there is to know about him. Seeing as he is the one who scouted him out in the first place. The boy's shady origins and his old glory days, turning trick's on Kuta beach.

Once they've sorted out that 'yes, it's been three days, no, he hadn't run off with Kate and yep, they've got to find her', Sawyer stomps by Henry taking the liberty to lie down on the fancy red couch. Not caring if his dirty feet put stains on the red fabric. Danan takes a seat in one of the armchairs. Legs crossed, looking utterly bored and unperturbed. Fakes it pretty well.

_The ransom. _They should have paid a huge amount of cash in unmarked dollar bills three days ago. Too late, it's far too late.

Sawyer's head spins but he's got to get cracking. If only he'd just packed her off on a bus or a train or something. He's such a moron. Should have chosen the simplest possible way. Had considered himself so damn clever, framing Pieter, getting her off the boat. Clearly, the joke is on him.

"So no one has contacted you about the ransom Marlow?" Sawyer throws his arm across his eyes. The yellow light in Hurley's office is enough to sizzle his retina. Wants to rest a little, take a little catnap, but that's not relevant now. He can't afford to waste time. Just a little lie-down and then he'll be on his way. No time to lose.

"No. It's been quiet. Honestly, we all thought you guys had eloped. Frankly, we were all quite happy for you." Henry, buzzes the secretary in, orders him ice tea and sandwiches. Wants to protest, a stiff drink ought to do it.

"So, you've really been in the hospital… all this time?

"What gave it away, super-sleuth? The big ass bandage or my night gown?"

Henry ignores the sarcasm and maybe he shouldn't waste his breath on it either._ Think, think, think. _He has to plan his next move and his brain feels like jelly, just wiggling around painfully in his skull.

"Ni Luh and the crew still hanging tight?"

"Yeah. We had to buy the guests airline tickets back to Jakarta. They weren't too happy about it. Paid up a heavy compensation for the lost holidays.

"Yeah well, that's the least of our problems." He really doesn't want to hear it right now. The big hit the business' balance sheet has taken. _Hell_, he can explain it all to Hurley if Henry is worried. He's sure the big guy will understand a few collateral damages under the circumstances. What he won't understand is Sawyer being such a big fucking idiot as to bring Dewi and Danan on board. He won't understand and he'll probably not forgive it either, should anything happen to Kate.

Danan sags in his chair, tall and sort of bent over, not so darn fancy now and it pleases Sawyer. To see that someone else is worried, possibly feeling guilty. Makes him feel a little less alone. Danan sits up properly when Henry's secretary comes in and sets a tray down on the coffee table.

"I know where they're hanging out, Dewi's boss, Andrei's people." he says, sweeping back his hair, matted and unwashed, his eyes tired too. Picks up a little triangle sandwich and bites into it. "But I've already checked it out, and that's not… where they keep her."

"Okay then buddy, let's you and me pay these scumbags a little visit, see if they wanna' tell us where the hell she is." Sawyer gets up, not without difficulty. "Oh hell." Lurches towards Henry's desk and manages to make it to the paper bin at the very last moment, ends up dry heaving into it. Nothing in his stomach to vomit.

"Man, you have a concussion or something? Maybe you just ought to go lie down for a while?"

"Just piss off, alright." She could be long gone. Could be sick, hurt, frightened out of her mind. She could be dead. The myriad of possible consequences of having fucked up this badly – he can't even begin to think about it. She must be the picture of health if he finds her. When – he finds her.

"You might wanna' put on some real clothes first, dude," Henry fidgets with his pen. Turning it in his hand, unscrewing the cap, taking out the little tube inside, the spring only to put it all together again and start all over. "You look like you're on the run from the loony bin."

"We done with the third degree buddy? We gotta' get going…"

Henry darts up from his seat as if this is his cue. Makes his way behind his desk. Hurley's desk, pulling out the top drawer so fast a bunch of paper fall down around his feet. Something is off. He's too nervous, too clumsy. An uneasiness about him that makes Sawyer guarded. Something is up.

"I've got her passport already."

What the hell will he do with a passport if he hasn't got the girl.

"How? Ain't been more than a few days." Eying the sandwiches on the coffee table. Danan sure is tucking in, one after another of those little triangles. Eating like there is no tomorrow. Sawyer snatches one from out of his hand.

"What the...?" Danan with a dumb open-mouthed look as if he was just about to take a bite. Hah. Makes it taste all the better. As long as he can keep it down for a while. A concussion is a very realistic possibility but he can't give into the weakness now. Later, he'll bitch and moan and thrash on a bed. Preferably with her cool little hand on his forehead, feeding him smoothies through straws.

"So Henry-boy, how come my girl gets the speed lane this time?"

"Well, I thought… better be fast. Lower our standards a little." Lower standards, yeah well. He's all for cutting corners but he better get the hell out of Hurley's office and start shaking down some bad guys. Henry droning on, making Sawyer's head hum. "The easiest and cheapest option… So, here. You hold on to it for now. There are some other papers in there as well… could be useful."

Digs in the manila envelop. Growing seriously bored of these things. Hopes she gets a better name this time.

"Republic of Indonesia…? What the hell Henry? This here... it ain't even funny. What is she supposed to do with this crap?" Worthless heap of papers. They mean absolutely nothing. Indonesian passport, who ever heard of such a moronic idea?"

"Well… No need for visa and residence permits and all that hassle. She can live here, you know, until the…"

"Yeah well that's provided there will be a…anything." He's got to find her first. Can't worry about that as well. Not now.

"So… the Indonesian thing. It's not as shaky as it sounds... Mrs. Katia Subroto, widow and naturalized citizen. So once she has the kid… well, it can get a birth certificate and everything, only father will be unknown... this Mr. Subroto passed on a few years ago, can't pin it on him."

The poor sucker might be better off without him, no doubt about it. But suddenly it matters, and it shouldn't, it really shouldn't. Wants to see his own goddamn name on that birth certificate. And he must be losing it, thinking about something so completely irrelevant, so utterly beside the point. _She's not even here._

"She ain't gonna' need a damn passport if she's set in a block of cement somewhere. Hop along Danny-boy, we better go see these chums of yours."

Henry ignores this kind of crazy talk. Just pretends he hasn't heard. Leaving Sawyer with yet another brown envelop he never asked for, never wanted to carry.

"James… there's one more thing..." Henry drops his pen on the floor, fishes around for it in the thick shag carpet under the coffee table. Enervating as hell. What is wrong with him, butter-fingered and as nervous as a whore in church. Damn him, he better just spit it out. Sawyer has no patience for guessing games. "Well… It's both good news and bad news and…"

Sawyer, heaves himself off the coach, moving between the sofa and the coffee table. No time to lose.

"Spit it out buddy, ain't got all day to stand around in my goddamn nightie."

'Well dude, sorry to spring it on you like this." Draws in a gulp of air, looking more like a frog than ever, eyes flicking back and forward between his stupid pen and Sawyer's face. "They're back."

_They're. Back._

He gets it but it's just words. Maybe he never expected them to return, not really. And now. Shit. He steadies himself with one hand on the doorframe. He's got to make it stop swirling. God knows what funky painkillers he's been fed with at the hospital.

"Who's back? When?"

"They are." Makes a strange grimace, rolling his eyes in Danan's direction. Oh yeah, right, the one who started it all. "Claire and Aaron too. It worked. Called us on the satellite two days ago. Docked next to the Merdeka yesterday."

_Back. _His first thought; _they fucking made it! _The second; perfect, just perfect. Now? They have to come sailing back now? When he's lost her and Christ, Jack will have kittens. Can already imagine him, trying to keep a straight face, blame shining through. His only task, the only fucking thing he had to do – keep her safe. And he has failed. He's gone and knocked her up and had her kidnapped.

_He's got to fix this._

"Henry, you think you can manage to dig up a gun?"

His stomach hurts at the thought, damn, how could he let it all slip away like this? He'd had it all planned out and hell, now nothing is right. She must be scared out of her mind somewhere.

"A gun? I don't know, these guys are not playschool Cowboy," Danan says.

"All the more reason to be armed." Shit. He's got to track her down before Jack and the happy-go-lucky gang finds out. He'd served her up to Dewi's crowd like a little gift-wrapped bonbon. 'Here, go ahead, eat.' If she's still on Bali, he'll find her.

"Wait. There is something else..."

"The tearful reunion will have to wait. Get me a gun buddy, and hard cash, as much as you've got in that safe." Only a vague idea of how to go about but he's got to do something. Forces himself not to think of how his head hurts. Got to get the girl back. His girl. So much time wasted. "Come along Gatsby, we're off."

"Just… it's…" I really think you need to see them before..." Henry shifty, squirming in his seat like a goddamn Boa Constrictor. Sweat stains growing around the armpits of his shirt.

That awakens his antennas, they crackle and try to tune in. Something is off and Henry is stalling. He refuses to look Sawyer in the eyes and he doesn't even want to think what else can be so horribly wrong that Henry can't just say it. They're back, that ought to be nothing but good news.

"Why?" Spears him with a stare that has Henry bizarrely pale, wringing his hands in his lap.

"Just go see them. They're on the Merdeka."

…

He washes up in his room, takes the bandage off his head, carefully unwrapping it and it isn't all that bad. A big egg-sized bump with a gash on top, looks like someone has bashed him across the forehead with a sharp rock. Fucking perfect. Pops a few painkillers Danan has gotten him. Fresh shirt and underwear and he's good to go. He has his hand on the door handle when he changes his mind. The hospital clothes on his bed. Searches the front pocket, fumbling with it. The skeleton baby, doesn't look at it, just tucks it into his shirt. Near his heart.

The damage to his head must be pretty darn serious. Growing drippy in his old age. But it's her, she's gone and if he finds her, he'll stop this nonsense, he'll make her see. No more games, no fear. He's got enough courage for both of them.

He'll stick his big soppy nose in her hair and he'll promise her heaven and earth. He will.

Locks his door behind himself and makes his way through the hotel garden. His heart pounding and palms sweaty as if he's on his way to his prom date. The wind from the sea is strong today and he is still so woozy he worries he might take a plunge when he navigates up the ship plank.

Captain Maf'ud saluting him and passing by, just like that.

The Merdeka. A formidable idea that they'd sunk, just like that. Hell. He'll have to convince Hurley now to let them sell it, set up something, a diving resort. Far away from civilization where he can hide her away from the world. Imagines a little hut on the beach. Him and her. No, fuck it. He doesn't even know where she is and it makes his head hurt. He's way behind the abductors. They've had time to stash her away. Danan better know what he's talking about.

Draws in a lungful of air, trying to fortify himself before he staggers down the steps to the canteen. Ready to met the firing squad. In and out, that's how he plans it. He'll pretend he has her holed up somewhere safe, buy some time. He's prepared for it. Still. He wavers there on his spot on the mess floor. Wants to rub his eyes and shake his head awake. And there they are, just as promised. As if nothing's happened. Miles, Jack and Claire. That little nipper picking with a spoon, drooling all over his own neck, alive and kicking by all means. They did it.

They fucking did it.

Back, just like that. Sitting there drinking Ni Luh's goddamn coffee, sombre and muted, mumbling. Soft glances up at him when he enters the canteen. Something tying them together, something keeping Sawyer out. Hell, they'll ask about Kate. The lie has to be smooth and glossy as butter. Miles has a great bullshit radar.

"Well I'll be damned!" Fakes a jolly surprise that he doesn't feel. But the next instant he wants to touch them. As if they are family and he guesses that in a sense they are.

All of them. Make sure he's not hallucinating this, so he does. He bundles over, not caring if he's stepping on toes, hitting someone in the jaw with an elbow. Jack embracing him, dunking his back. A proper hug. Miles a little quicker, not quite as emotional. Claire, sweet, pressing a her lips to his cheek while holding onto the dribbling kid and he can't resist, giving little freak a kiss as well. Relief at seeing them back safely intermingled with the terror of the inevitable questioning. He's so messed up. Emotional in a way he's not used to. Puts his hand flat over his shirt pocket, feeling the outline of the cardboard picture underneath the fabric.

"Oh jeez… you. All of you… You're back." His own nose, wet, snotty and congested. Wipes at his eyes, but doesn't really care. Shit, if anytime, it ought to be alright now. "Well, so where's the big guy? Hitting the buffet already"

The nervous glances flying criss-cross between them. Wants to shake someone, doesn't like this. His first instinct is to squeeze his eyes shut and run screaming off the boat. Jump in the sea.

"Where's Hurley?" He looks around the table and they all look at Jack. 'You, you. You tell him', the eyes say and he knows already he won't like it. Refuses to put one and one together. Needs to hear the words and maybe it's not as bad as he imagines.

"He... we lost him James." Jack, all earnest and he wants to punch him out for saying it. Saying what he already knows but doesn't want to hear. Refuses to understand. He won't take it in.

"_Lost _him'? Lost is a dog that runs off without a tag, a kid twaddling off between the cereal aisles at the supermarket. It's the girl you love, kidnapped because you were too dumb to see it coming.

"What do you mean 'you lost him'? He wandered off? Took the wrong turn at the crossing? What the fuck does that mean!"

"He didn't make it." They all bend their necks and stare down on the tabletop. Except the kid who's happily unaware, drooling away. "He... he blew up Widmore's ship."

_No. It's a lie._ It's a goddamn lie and any second now, Hurley will bumble in there, shiny floppy curls and generous gut leading the way. Any damn second.

It's not something he can wrap his brain around. He can see already how this will go down. The man who holds them all together. _Gone. _But right now he needs to deal with Kate before he can let himself absorb it. Can't tell them about her, must make it alright. A ridiculous idea, he knows it, but he decides there and then that he'll bring her back. Will have her back safe and sound before they find out that he has lost her. Gets up so fast he knocks Jacks coffee cup over. Ni Luh comes running with a rag to mop it up. A warm soft hand on his shoulder. His ally, his only ally on this damn ship. Meets her eyes as she wipes away the last of the warm brown liquid. She won't tell them.

_She'll back him up._

"Sorry to spring it on you like this... It must be..." Jack, all concerned and Sawyer needs to get away from him. "Why don't you sit down a little?"

"I can't... I've got some business to attend to." Tries to sound light and breezy and he really just wants to break down. Wants to find a corner, curl up with his arm around a bottle. Any second now they'll ask for her. And he is right.

"Where's Kate at?" Miles, sitting too close to Claire for it to be casual friendship anymore. Good for him, at least someone is happy in this soup of misery and failure.

"We've had some problems. Don't worry, it's been taken care of…"

"What _kind_ of problems?" Miles, that innate suspiciousness. Ni Luh pours him some coffee, but he's not sure he can keep it down. Claire looking at him with those pert blue eyes waiting for an answer too. He wonders if she has forgiven Kate, if all that can be put behind them. Not that it matters right now, he just needs to get out of there as soon as possible. Won't be able to keep it together much longer.

"Fugitive problems, some guy threatening to turn her in, the usual." At least she isn't dead. Or so he hopes.

"Well, if it's safe, bring her here. She needs to know. It affects her more than anyone..."

"How so?" He knows already. Her protector gone, Sawyer is a piss-poor substitute. Couldn't support a goddamn hamster. Probably couldn't keep it alive for a week. Shit. All he had to do, was look out for her. One simple task.

"Hurley's mom is flying in, in a few days. To sort out his property, we all need to be here, decide what to do..." Jack looks like he's about to lose it. About ten years older and Sawyer can't listen to this. Normal things, practicalities. Hurley's mom. It has nothing to do with him. Only he knows it does. The ship, it was Hurley's. Now it's his mama's. She'll want to sell it for sure, what else would she do with a big-ass wooden monster like that. It's not as if she could just merrily sail it home to Los Angeles. Still, the boat - is the least of his problems.

"Yeah... right."

"I'll help out. With her." Jack almost stutters. Not sure how Sawyer will take his offer. He doesn't know any of it yet.. Doesn't know what they are nowadays. Well, hell, neither does Sawyer. "I have enough money to tide her over."

"Nah, I've got it." Hah. He's got fuck all, not even a grip over himself. Maybe enough for a couple of months rent in the backwaters somewhere. A ticket to Manado. If he can find her. If. But he damn well won't let Jack sweep in and take over now. He set this whole farce in motion, he's got to steer it into a safe harbor somehow. Desperate to get out of there. Away from them all. Can't stand their eyes on him, how even though they say nothing. All of them know. He should have been the one.

_Not Hurley._

...

Escapes up the stairs and he feels rather than hears her soft steps behind him. Catches him right outside the canteen door. Or maybe he waits for her. Needs someone, someone who knows what a fucking failure he is. Hurley. Gone. Ni Luh takes his hand and he can't help it it. Warm and dry and maternal, the way she squeezes it. Something breaks inside of him.

Can't remember the last time he was like this. Weak. Feeling his face falling, not able to stop it. Back against the door of the canteen, slides down until he sits on his ass, bawling. Balling his hands against his face. _Shit. Shit. _God is a bastard and he is lost.

Warm plump arms around him, pulling him to a chest. His cheek against the sof expanse of a bosom. Weeps like a goddamn kid and he can't stop it, can't control it.

"Schh… I'm so sorry. So sorry about your friend." He grabs hold of her. Holds her so hard he fears she might not be able to breathe. And he might not be able to let go. Ever. Wants to cry, _'Mama, Mama'_. Something so primitive, it numbs all other senses than the bare minimum. How she smells sweet, warm ground coffee. How her arms hold him. Rock him. Her voice whispering nonsense in his hair.

_He is a failure._

"So, so. Let it out." Presses his face hard against her. _No goddamn it. _What the fuck is wrong with him? He's a grown man. Hugo is gone and though it breaks his fucking heart he can't afford to wallow in it now. Nobody's going to get her back for him.

_Woman. Child._

That urge inside of him, like a growl from the deepest, most primitive parts of him, radiating out into muscles. It sobers him up, instantly. No. He'd give his life for her. He's always known that. Right from the start, from selfish bastard to somebody willing to do anything, everything for her. Wipes his face on his shirt. _No fuck it,_ it won't help anybody if he sits here, ass on deck, snivelling like a toddler. Tears have never helped anybody. He feels his sanity hanging in a thin and fickle thread and he's got to keep it together, now isn't the time to crumble.

"I've got to get her back."

"What?" She helps him up. It ought to be the other way around but it isn't. He leans on a little woman, half his size.

"Dewi has her. Or let's hope she still does... _Fuck,_ I screwed up so bad Lu'."

"What? What are you saying? Dewi, she said you sent her… I though she'd been with you all this time. Thought you'd taken off."

"No. No that's what I should have done. I'm such a fucking bonehead…"

"What can I do? Can I help?"

_Take it away. _Now more than anytime would be the moment to make himself scarce. Not that he will. Damn it, he'll have her back in one piece by nightfall. Has to.

"Just cover for me okay. I ain't about to tell them all, not now with Hugo gone. Just…lie, alright Lulu? Say she's hiding out somewhere."

"Sure. You can count on me." And he knows he can. A weight off his shoulders, leave the lying to her.

"I owe you one, Ni Luh."

"No. It's my fault. I let her go with Dewi. I should have stopped her, I could have…"

"Ain't your fault. She never were your responsibility to start with." Because she was his, all his. And he did a shitty job at looking after her. Gives Ni Luh a light kiss on the cheek, he wants to linger. Soft and brown under his lips, the wonder of women. How they can be soft as butter and tough as steel.

…

The rest is fast. Danan in tow, a phone number to a guy who supposedly can fix them up with a gun. Efficient and unemotional.

_Fuck. Fuck._

Hugo. Enough heart for them all. Useless riff raff, taking them in like family. But can't think of it now. Get her back, get her in safety first and then he'll let it in.

Picks up the gun from what seems to be a kind little grandfather but who's more likely a local god father. A Muslim prayer cap on his head and a sarong, carelessly wrapped around hips.

Gun in hand, they rent a car from Kuta. Danan drives and Sawyer sits beside him sweating, air condition not working, jittery and frankly scared stiff. They are both silent. Not the time for any pissing contest, not the time to compare coolness. The gun bulky inside his waist band. A shitty old thing, likely to jam. Hopes to God he won't have to use it.

…

They hunt for Dewi. They trail around the night spots until dawn and spend the next day chasing down tips, asking Danan's acquaintances, snooping around. Until finally they strike gold. A rental house, where apparently she lives alone and an exclusive seafood restaurant on Legian beach which she frequents.

After failing to spot her at the rental house they resort to staking out the restaurant. They sit in a rented car outside on the busy street sweating with their windows wound down.

"So you're still planning on leaving her in the lurch?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Takes a swig from the water bottle, the content already tepid and the taste stale. His shirt sticking to his skin. Everything humid and sweltering.

"Kate. Once you find her. Are you still planning on legging it?"

"I ain't 'legging it'. Someone's gotta' bring home the bacon." Hushed voice, glancing at the street. If Dewi doesn't show up soon, he doesn't know what they'll do. Desperation clawing at him, making it hard to sit still.

"What kind of feeble excuse is that? You can't do that from here? That tourist ship you guys got going?" Easy for him to say. This is home base for him, knows the language, the mentality of the people, probably has a load of contacts. Not completely uncomplicated to pull of a scam on alien territory.

"Ain't an excuse. Thanks to you and papa' Widmore, there won't be no tourist ship no more. No nothing. And Hugo ain't coming back."

"Oh, you mean Hugo...? Listen, I'm sorry. Oh hell..." Danan seems genuinely shaken, but Sawyer doesn't care. Doesn't give a shit for how Danan feels. "Really liked the lad, a good man."

Sonofabitch. Wants to put the blame on someone else, and he probably could if he didn't think too hard about it. But in the end, it all comes back to himself. Hurley taking on the responsibility for something he ought to have done. Hurley stepping out because he was to caught up gazing at his on belly button to be of any use. How different it all could have turned out.

"So... how did it happen? What happened to him?"

"Blew himself up." Should have been him. Sawyer. Or Danan, or any of the other fucked-up losers he'd taken under his big generous wings. Hurley should be sitting on a beach café' licking barbecue sauce off his fingers. The loss is too big. He can't think of it too long. A new respect for Kate's method of dealing. Shut it down, pretend it isn't true.

"Blew himself up? What do you mean? How?"

"What do you think you damn imbecile? Explosion. On the damn island, where else? Daddy's old boat, that's what. And don't fucking ask me if your scumbag father is alright because I don't fucking know alright!" Wheezing and he feels his throat aching. Must be all the whispering. Shit. He needs a smoke. Needs it now.

"He probably is. Roaches survive everything, right?"

Sawyer is more than taken aback at that remark. So, some seriously hurt feelings on that side too. Widmore must have done a number on him.

"So what are you gonna' do old man?"

"I'm gonna have to get a fucking day job. Support her."

"What does that entail?"

"It entails me getting my lazy ass back to the States and serve it up to some woman with a trust fund. You know that! You've done your damn research on me so don't look so fucking shocked."

"Now? You're going to leave her like this?"

"Oh don't do the shocked thing with me buddy, you ain't any less a slut than me."

"You can't do something else? Get a real job?"

"And you think that'll be enough. What happens next time she needs to run, needs a new identity or if we need to pay someone off. You think a real job will pay that kind of money?"

"But you could stay here. Do it here in Bali. I could hook you up with a crew."

"Nah, it takes more than that to pull off a big one. It's gotta' be home turf. I ain't smart enough to do some Asian gig. 'Sides, I don't' trust you buddy."

"You're an idiot. She won't forgive you this time. Not with the bun." Sawyer wants to wipe that stupid appalled expression off his face. Who the fuck is Danan to judge? He started all of this. Only, the bun, that's all his own doing.

"She's practical. She'll understand." She won't. Oh hell, she won't understand at all. Will think he doesn't care, that he's running from her. Money is easy, the staying together, that's the hard part.

...

It's dusk when they spot Dewi, high heels and a slinky little black dress skimming slim hips, long pale legs moving fast.

"How are we going to do this?" Danan is drumming his fingers against the wheel, making Sawyer want to scream at him. It's fucking enervating, is what it is.

"Follow my lead boy..."

Sawyer waits until she leaves the restaurant not long after, following her on foot down the little alley leading to her rental house. Watches her slim ankles, the way her hips barely sway, all sleek and lean. Thinking he'll kill her. Woman or no woman, if something has happened to Kate, chivalry can go straight to hell. He'll take that woman's life, no hesitation.

He sneaks up on her outside her gate, grateful for the darkness. She doesn't scream or even flinch, just lets out a sighs, as if bored. As if she is expecting barrel of the gun pressed against her back while she fumbles, putting back her key in her purse.

"What do you want?" He hates how she looks so self-assured, as if she has nothing to fear from him. It makes him think she has Kate pretty securely stashed away. That it will be hard to get to her.

"You know what I want, and you're going to get her back for me," he whispers in her ear, intimate and sweet. She wears a strong perfume, something expensive, something that smells like power.

"I don't have her here," she says staring straight ahead at her in through her gate. Keys still in a slim elegant hand. Seemingly unaffected by the gun aimed at her. Maybe she knows he has never shot a woman.

"Yeah well, ain't that a pity. Start walking!" wheezing in her ear. He throws his left arm around her, like a lover. Right hand wedged behind her back awkwardly, pointing at her in a less than optimal angle. Prefers to take a risk with her rather than being spotted holding a woman at gunpoint.

They make it back to the waiting car and Danan behind the wheel. Sawyer bundles her into the backseat and gets in beside her. Relieved at having made it back to the car. He snatches her little clutch purse away from her, flicking it open, searching for her cellular phone.

"Well Danan. Can't say I'm surprised to see you with him. One loser finds another. Birds of a feather and all that..." Dewi smiles her lovely smile with the thousand little pearly teeth. Danan, chin lifted as if he hasn't heard, starts the car, making it out on the trafficked main street. Young party-goers in throngs on the sidewalk, girls in colourful dresses and high strappy sandals, the guys in loose shirts and shorts. Every second place is a bar or a restaurant. Suddenly wishing for a different life - a completely normal life, with holidays to a tropical island, carefree drinking in a cheap touristy bar with a girl in a cheap cotton dress. That. It will never be him and her. Never.

"So what's the plan Cowboy? Where to?" Danan cranes his neck backwards, presumably to check if Sawyer is keeping his gun properly aimed.

"Matahari here is gonna' set things up, ain't you sweetheart?"

"Oh I am, am I?" She has that superbly snooty way about her that is aimed at making people uncomfortable, make them feel out of her league but he knows this game. And he doesn't think she's as cool as she's making out. Something about the way sinew is showing on her neck, a tense set to her shoulders. Drives the barrel of the gun in between her ribs unnecessarily hard.

"You sure are... And this is how it's gonna' go down; you're gonna' make a call to your Ruski and tell him Kate ain't staying where she is. That you have a great spot in mind and that you can handle it."

She turns to scowl at him. Eyeing him above her nose as if he's dirt under her shoes.

"How am I going to make him believe that?" Flicks that shiny hair back. She is a beauty alright, can't believe he could have been so stupid as to involve her in the first place, He should have known. Should have sensed it.

"Ain't my problem Honey. Just make it work."

"Or...?" The cheeky little thing even grins at him. A challenge, she knows he's got a weakness for the ladies, hell that's no secret. He certainly wouldn't take any pleasure in hurting one.

"What the fuck do you think?" Tries to sound like he means business but the mere thought of putting a bullet through her makes him want to throw up all over his shoes. He's never killed a woman, not looking forward to making her the first.

"Danan..? Really? You're with these people now?" She would have patted him on the shoulder too if Sawyer hadn't raised the gun in a subtle warning. _Back off._

A newfound appreciation for how Danan just sits there, cool as a cucumber, that winning smirk, not deigning her with an answer. A good partner. If only he'd not insisted on bringing Dewi in as well. _Hell,_ Danan had straight out warned him.

"So... really? Am I supposed to believe you will kill me if I don't' do what you say?"

"Just try me, sweetheart. Test me."

"For her?"

Hell yeah. He would. If she has as much as bent a hair on Kate's head he'll make her pay. He'll dump her in the ocean without an ounce of regret, not a smidgen of guilt. _He will._

"Yep. For her."

...

A long winding road leading away from the busy streets of bars and tourist restaurants, a good bit north. Electricity almost non-existent here. A few homes lit up, no street lights. The air warm and smelling of rain as the landscape swishes by their open car windows. Rice fields, the moon reflected in the water.

The meeting point. They're going to need a lot more than a lick of luck to get her back.

Danan had picked it out. A little deserted dirt road up an hour and a half north west from Sanur. A light rain drizzling, varying in force from minute to minute. They sit in their car quietly. Danan in the driver's sear, Dewi next to him, Sawyer in the back with the gun still aimed at her ribs. His hand slippery around the handle. How easily it could slip out. His breathing is jagged and irregular and he almost stops breathing altogether when he spots the headlights of an approaching vehicle.

"Alright, let's get this show on the road." His heart so loud he can't think. Mouth dry and damn it, he should have boosted himself with a drink before setting off after Dewi. But he needs his wits about him. The dark sedan comes to a halt ahead of them, half lights still on. It's foolish, he knows, because it's not like he's got a sixth sense or anything, but he can feel her. _Here_.

A man climbs out, the silhouette large and clumsy as he lumbers across the road towards them, walking as if he's holding basketballs in his armpits. Exaggerated broad shoulders, arms held out from the torso. The window is rolled down on Dewi's side.

"It's crunch time girl. Nice and easy and everything will be fine and dandy."

The man, a wide pock-faced goon leaning down to peer through their car window. Casting a fast glance at Sawyer and Danan before turning his attention on Dewi.

"So Miss... what is happening?" Sounds like a parody of a KGB spy. Husky, deep voice with hard Eastern European consonants that jars in Sawyer's ears. Those gorillas, to think that they've had their paws on her for four long days. They better not have as much as sneezed on her.

"Sorry for the trouble... the boss called really late and he wanted this done tonight so..." How Dewi can make her voice sweet and personable. The man seemingly melting, well hell, she'd sort of had the same effect on him. That model-look, the oriental eyes and the classic beauty of her face.

"Who are the eggheads? Ebony and ivory?" Pointing at Sawyer and Danan as if they're serfs who are too dumb to answer on their own.

"Andrei just assigned them too me. I always get stuck with the green ones." Dewi's mouth tight and annoyed and Sawyer almost begins to dare hoping it might work out. The big oaf might actually fall for it.

"I hear you. Look at mine, some kid barely off his mama's tit," the man chuckles. Go away. He wills the man to step away from the car, go get out of here. _He just needs to see her. Safe._

"So... You bring the 'package'?"

"Sure, open your trunk. I'll bring it over with ape-boy there." A thumb backwards, probably indicating the incapable partner still sitting in the parked car. Not a smidgen of self-irony at the fact that he himself looks like a grey-backed mountain gorilla.

And his heart wants to leap out of his chest when a quick glance backwards shows the two men lugging a human sized package towards the back of their own rental car. Danan pressing the button for the trunk to open. The car rocking when they drop the weight at the back and then it's slammed shut again. Pock-face dunks his palm against the car's roof and bends forwards towards Dewi again.

"Alright then. See you around Miss, and put in a good word for me with the Boss will you? I could really need a promotion."

"Sure thing Sacha... Who doesn't?" Sawyer is amazed at the buddy-buddy tone she manages in spite of her girly unapproachable appearance. Smarter than he'd given her credit for.

_Kate. _It better be Kate all bundled up in the trunk. They drive away only after the backlights of the sedan have faded away in the night. They need to put some distance between them before they can let her out. Driving slowly, carefully as if they are transporting explosives. They find another side-road, down by the beach. The waves hitting cliffs, loud and wild, the wind beating in from the sea, an uncontrolled, uninhabited roughness to this side of the island.

Sawyer shoves Dewi ahead of him, away from the car, her hair swirling around her head like she's trying to fly.

"You're going to leave me here?" Looks a little scared now. No money, _no nothing. _Can't help it, he regards her tense shoulders with enormous satisfaction.

"Depends on what's in that trunk back here." Holding the gun to her temple now that they are out of the car." Gatsby, check it. Might not even be our _package_."

Danan walks behind the car and he can only stand there with Dewi and watch in the faint light how he bends down over the trunk.

"She alright buddy?"

"Yes, yeah she seems okay." Wants to run, like a foal, skip across the road when he sees Danan pull the figure up, slinging an arm around and hauling her inside the backseat. But first things first. He waves the gun in Dewi's direction. "Start walking Quisling!"

"I need my purse." Prissy little mouth, eyes glimmering black against her pale face.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I'm gonna' give you bus money now, after what you've done?" His eyes automatically searching out the car. _She's there. _He can't concentrate on Dewi now, can't even muster up much hate.

"You think you'll get away with this? Really?" Dewi spits out, and maybe she's right. He really doesn't care. All that matters is that his girl is in that ugly rental car, alive and breathing. "You don't know Andrei he'll hunt you down."

"Nah, the way I see it. Andrei will realize what a little traitor you are. So if I were you I'd get a move on girl. Get the hell off Bali before you've got the entire Ruski mafia in a gaggle after you."

She takes a few gingerly steps in the darkness, her high heels making her sink down into the mud. He almost feels sorry for her. _Almost. _But he knows her type, beautiful and ruthless – they always survive.

Turns towards the car. _She is there. Safe. _That feeling, that breathless anticipation, the very same as when he'd received that call back on the island. Watching her stepping out of the van, her hair in some silly plait, little curls escaping in the strong winds sweeping the cliff. Instantly turning his calm little domestic fantasy life upside-down. Juliet and him, she'd known it before he had cottoned on. How Kate's arrival had spelled the end of what they'd shared. But there are no hearts to be broken here, not now. Not if you don't count his own of course. There is nothing to worry about, nothing to think about except a girl in a car, waiting for him. And the last few paces to the car, he runs. Doesn't care if he looks like an eager puppy, bounding forward the last stretch, metaphorical dog ears flapping against his head.

And he won't run from this. He's been given a second chance. He doesn't know what to do, how or if he can make it work but he'll try goddamnit._ He will._

A deep breath before he reaches for the door handle. Cold metal in his hand. And if Ni Luh is even remotely on the right track, and a good deed can balance out a bad one, then nothing – nothing makes sense. Hurley, a person who's never as much as hurt a fly. Dead. Kate safe. And himself, a man that deserves absolutely nothing, nil, zilch. He's got the woman he loves, right there. In that car. Can't see how the hell that can be Karma, how one doesn't balance up for the other. How God dishes out one thing and rips away another.

He'll bitch to God about it later. But right now, ugly as it is. He's grateful, so fucking thankful. Like a f miracle, she's been brought to him, undeservedly for sure. But brought back. _To him._

He opens the back door and crouches to get in. And there she is. Can't see much, just the outline of her and a reflection of her eyes in the obscurity of the car. How she smells, almost like an animal, dirty and musty.

There she is. Alive. _His._

"Hi," her voice small and sweet, the 'hi' just exhaled, just wafting through the humid evening air.

...

_Sorry for Hurley, please, please don't hate me... or go ahead, that wasn't a very nice thing to do at all. Feeling guilty now... but I needed him to go down like a hero. Hope you don't hate it and can hold on a day or two for the next chapter. It's ready to go, just couldn't post another 20k chapter. Trying to exercise some self control : )_


	38. The sound of another

_Don't know what to say except thank you! And without further delay, here comes the rest as promised..._

_Rated M for language and sexual content._

_Disclaimer: not mine, not really._

...

**The sound of another**

...

Wants to say something, everything. The words just missing, eluding him, inadequate as they might have been. Nervous like a first date, shy even, and that's not him. Experienced old goat that he is, he ought to be cooler about seeing her but he swears, his hands are shaking, his knees are weak.

_Now. Here. This._

This is where she says she wants him, and he takes her – all of her. This is where they finally make that choice. _You and me. Me and you._

Everything that matters to him, and then some.

He sweeps the remnants of straps down on the floor. Grateful to Danan for cutting them off her. Doesn't want to think of her with her hands and feet all bound, defenceless, unable to move.

Scoots in near her, almost yanking her to him or maybe she lunges forward at the same time. How they collide, his arms around her, holding her hard, hard, or perhaps she is the one clutching on to him. Doesn't know, doesn't care. The tightness in his chest not letting up. The substance of another human being, just bone, muscle and flesh, how it can feel like walking through a door. Like coming home.

"Sorry... baby girl. I'm so fucking sorry." Mouth desperate on her temple, rubbing his nose against her skin. He won't let go. Can't. Can feel her trying to nod or something against his shoulder. Oh, hell, the scent of her skin underneath it all. His hands, both of them flat across her back, up and down. He tries to feel her pulse, take in the soft cadence of her lungs filling up and deflating again. Wants to feel the life in her. Make sure she is real and not a drunken illusion.

A muffled sound from her, her lips against his own neck, a little humid, warm. And he realizes that at some point he has to let go, has to sit up in his seat and she in hers but not now. Not yet. Her head heavy on his shoulder, how his heart swells.

It kills him, how she feels in his arms. Solid, as if she is something to hang on to, as if she is strong enough to face him. Like she has waited for this forever.

Then again, maybe it's all him, all wishful thinking. Because next thing he feels is her trying to pull away abruptly, pushing to loosen his grip. Maybe they've passed that limit, foggy and indefinable, of what's acceptable. That's it then. They've had their little moment and obviously that hug was the climax of it all. And he wants to force her to remain as she is, squashed against his chest. But he has to have some measure of dignity left, even if it's minimal.

_Fuck it._ How nothing has changed. He gives up, hell, he can't make her. Lets his arms fall aside, liberating her. Go ahead, pull back if you have to, he thinks. Maybe this is as close as they'll ever get.

How she surprises him. Frees herself of the hug only to move in close again, like a little puppy snuggling up under his arm, her forehead bent down against his chest, nudging at him. Her warm body, soft and hard at the same time, her hip against his, delicious to sit like this. Best of all, how she takes his hand, the one dangling down her shoulder. Entwines her fingers in between his, holding on so hard it hurts.

"You alright girl?" He turns his face down towards her, mouth against her hair. His fingers brushing her wrist. Up and down, downy skin, trying to communicate what he can't say. How he loves her. Could have lost her.

They can't seem to get close enough, how she rubs her face against him, nose poking at his armpit, her breath hot through his shirt. Like an animal searching comfort. Close, close. And he can't think clearly when she does that thing. As if it's completely natural, as if it's unquestionable that they should be together. Something has happened to her, some decision has been taken without him. Right over his head and he ain't complaining, hell no. Not if it means he gets to have her pressing herself against him. Her thigh warm, radiating heat in spite of two layers of denim. Her free hand planted on his lap in a way that makes him wish she'd stroke it up and down. Touch him, take him. He's wide open, ripe for pickings. Can't play hard to get a second longer.

Or maybe it's just how he's been starved, deprived of her for so long. Any little gesture makes him think of sex, makes him envision more. Much more. Every little innocent move sending his already hyperactive imagination working in overdrive. Tonight, wants to bring her somewhere. Wants them to finally get somewhere. Wants to hear the words from her. He knows they're there, under the apprehension, the caution. His fingers stroking her knuckles, clenched between her fingers. Saying; _just let go baby._

Danan ahead of them in the driver's seat, knuckles white, gripping the steering wheel as if it might fly out of his hands any moment now. His hair falling across his face, the car speeding like an off-track freight train, swerving here and there. He wipes a hand across his eyes and Sawyer feels like telling him to hold on hard, goddamnit. Don't' really want to end up road-kill now that he's got her back.

They take the scenic route back and he doesn't really mind. Could sit silently like this for hours, days or weeks. Doesn't say anything because he knows how fast his mouth can drive a wedge between them Later, he thinks. In a little while, they'll talk. Not now. _Not yet. _Doesn't know where he is taking her. Has no plan yet, doesn't really care, as long as she's with him. Wants to bring her back to the old house in Sanur, a sudden flash of how it might be. How it might feel to fall asleep in her old bed there, how they might wake up later, make up for lost time. But truth is, he doesn't even know who lives there nowadays. Maybe Hugo sold it, or Henry might have rented it out.

"James, I need... well, do you have any money on you?" The words startle him, the first proper words spoken into the fabric of his shirt. Money? Like being doused by a bucket of ice water. _Money!_

"Sure, a little." He's got plenty but he isn't about to give her enough legroom to sneak out on him again. "Why? You wanna' hit the casinos, Freckles?"

"I need new meds. The shots, it's been four days..."_ Shit. No. _Rewind, doesn't want to hear it, wants to tell her to take it back. His turn to squeeze her fingers too hard. Unspoken, the needs of the little critter, the devastation of not meeting those needs. The urgency is not lost on him, like a noose tightening around his neck. He is responsible for both of them now. Her happiness, her life in a messy tangle with the kid's, no longer separable.

Wants to cover her with himself, envelop her completely – protect her. Could be too late for the kid. And how will he be able to tell her about Hurley then? Can't do it tonight, that's for sure. _Tomorrow_. He'll do it tomorrow.

His other hand on her thigh, it'll have to do for now. Her jeans, stiff from dirt.

"Wooster, you know where we can buy drugs without a prescription? At this hour?" Could have sworn he felt her lips move against his chest just then. Maybe she says 'thank you' or more likely; '_fuck off, you bastard – it's all your fault'._

"Any around-the-clock pharmacy in the country Cowboy. As long as you have cash. I know a place not far from here."

"Alright. Lead the way."

But he changes his mind not five seconds later. He's not getting the drugs for her before making sure the little nipper is alright first. Knowing her, she's too scared to find out, he is too but someone has got to be smart here. His hand over hers, a little sweaty and clammy now, his arm over her shoulders, how he seems too heavy for her all of a sudden.

"Wait... do us a favour, hunt down a clinic instead."

"No." She pulls her hand out of his instantly shrugs away the arm around her and sits up. "I don't need a doctor."

"We ain't gonna' discuss this Sweetcheeks." He knows he sounds gruff and irritable, but he wants to make sure there is no wiggle room. She's not running from this.

"Oh _really_? You're going to make me?" Testy, so goddamn quick-tempered it's making him gnash his teeth together. Looks like it's all on him.

"Yep. If that's what it takes." Sounds a hell of a lot more confident than he feels. Needs an anchor, something to keep him grounded. Without her fingers between his, he's lost. He's a paltry excuse for a man but she'll have to make do with him.

"What kind, old man?" Danan glancing at them in the rear-view mirror.

"What do you mean '_what kind'_? The Mama-kind of course, wiseass." Her eyes glaring at him in the relative darkness of the car. An angry glimmer, oh hell. Wants to force her back into his arms again. What the fuck is wrong with her? If the kid is dead, they've got to know – simple as that. Knows there is a certain hypocrisy to that reasoning, considering he can't bring himself to tell her about Hugo.

"I'm _not _going." Her voice like caustic soda, cutting herself loose from him. A strangely rigid position, arms folded crabbily across her chest. Her body stiff and chin held up high. The rejection visible in every muscle, every bone of her. Like a little girl. 'Don't want to!' But she will goddammit, he doesn't care how freaked out she is.

"You're going, if I've gotta' carry you inside..."

She stares at him. As if trying to evaluate how he might actually go about doing that. Then the sudden surrender. Not like her to give up without a fight. Maybe that's what four days and nights being held hostage does to a woman.

"Alright, alright. Drop it already... I'll go. But you're not coming with me." Knows she'll try to wheedle her way out of it. Pointless to argue with someone just trying to buy a few more hours, a few more days of ignorance. But he can relate to it, sympathise with her need to keep the bad news at bay, senseless as it is.

"A mental hospital might have been a good guess too." Danan's voice of reason from the driver's seat. Smug bastard. Must feel good not to be up to your neck in crap.

"Harhar, spare us the commentary Buster. So, something ought to be open at eight-ish. Ain't more than a few hours to go. We'll sleep in the car and wait for them to open."

Kate like a little black thunder cloud next to him, staring straight ahead of her, eyes on the road, streetlights lightning up her face in intervals of a few seconds .

"Alright. You're the boss." Wants to tell him that he can forget all about it, the boat, coming along to watch her. It's all over. Hurley gone, there is nothing left to plan with. They'll have to start off from scratch. He has no idea how to do that. "We'll go to the international clinic in Kuta then. Should be open soon."

They park down the street from the clinic. A frail morning light just shattering the night, a deep blue giving way to purples and pinks. Danan pushes his backrest back and closes his eyes. Just seems to sit back and fall asleep. Dignified and not the type who drools and snores in his sleep.

Reclines back, dog tired, but he can't sleep with her sitting perched stiff as a corpse next to him. The silence oppressive, the two of them wide awake with Danan in front of them. The tension getting to him, wondering if he should get out of the car. Just stretch his legs a bit. But at the same time he doesn't want to leave her alone there. Something desperate about her.

Fucked up how he can't help ogling her. Even now, when she looks like she's been chewed up by a giant catfish and spit out again. Jeans stained reddish brown beneath the knees, hair ratty and dirty. But there is something about her, like there is always something about her. That power she's got over him, without even trying. How she sits, straight upside down, her sundress slick against her skin, straining around a little rounded pot belly, fertile and juicy. Her breasts, round and sweet, he can even make out the edge of her bra through the fabric, the outline of her nipples.

_Loves her._ Loves how she looks, even now, messed up and mucky as hell. And it scares him, how damn physical this is with her.

They have to talk. So much to say, to sort out and he, lecherous sonofabitch - _he doesn't really want to talk at all._

Wants to tap Danan on the shoulder. Hey buddy, forget about the damned doctor. Ask him to take them to a hotel. A bed. Her and him, nothing holding them back. Wants to push down the straps of her dress, her bra.

And he's a fucking pervert, he admits it, but he can think of nothing else but her naked. Ditch Danan, find somewhere private and wrangle her out of those filthy, soiled clothes, slide down between her legs, the back of his hands on the insides of her thighs, coaxing them apart. Wants to remind her of how they can be together. How he always takes care of her. Always and in every which way he can think of. Wants to taste her, find out how she might be different now. How motherhood might make a woman out of a girl.

She spins her head around as if she knows his mind has lost itself in sweet contemplations of pleasure. Instantly shooting him down with a frigid glare, shattering all reveries of dewy skin and girlish delight. How she challenges him, glowering as if she's about to combust. As if he owes her an explanation. And maybe he does.

"Aw come on Freckles. I ain't bossing you around for the thrill of it."

"Oh yeah? Really? You're not being bossy?"

What kind of man is he, who can think of screwing her when everything is wrong? Hurley, the baby, her. He slaps a hand to his forehead. Straight across the bump and a sharp pain spreads across his entire face.

"Listen... I screwed up alright." He's screwing up right now, can only look at her after the throbbing of his head has subsided a little.

She nods curtly. Like an inpatient queen who has had to overlook far too many faux pas to let this one slide. A sniffle, drawing in snot. And either she has a hell of a cold or she's crying and he can't say he blames her. He is an asshole. Can't even talk to her like a grown-up. He's an asshole and an idiot. She must be pretty darn worried about the kid and here he is, acting like a right bastard.

Her hand is on the seat between them and he wants to take her fingers between his, pull her in towards him. A tender uncomfortable love mixing with desire and guilt.

The light from the sun, peaking over the horizon, pink and peach, warming her face in a way that makes him catch his breath. And she looks like hell in daylight. There is no doubt about it. Dirty, brown waves matted and tangled, obviously not washed for ages.

How she suddenly turns to face him, reaching her fingers out so unexpectedly, he thinks she might poke him in the eye. Instead her fingertips slide over his brow, so feathery light and wretchedly gentle it makes him want to close his eyes and moan.

"What happened to you?" Soft muted voice, don't want to wake Danan up. If that sneaky bastard is even asleep. He might just be faking it, but he can't care. Not with her smooth fingers on his face. A lover's touch. Up and down, across, in little circles. How they are too. So certain she loves him one second, doubting it, the next.

Wants to tell her to make up her fucking mind. Once and for all. Take him or leave him be.

"Oh that. It ain't nothing." Tough guy, that's who he is. He can smash his head in and he won't admit that now that she mentions it, it hurts like a bitch. It's been a while since those painkillers took the edge of it, but he won't let on. It's been a while since he let her baby him."Motorbike. Flew across the street head first. I had my lazy ass parked in a hospital bed for three days."

"But you're alright?" How she tries to sound as if she doesn't care. A little standoffish. _Oh _but he could roll in her concern for him, like a hog in sun-warm mud. He could relish in it. Thick and emotional and hell, he just knows she feels the way he does. Impossible that she doesn't.

Her fingers follow his nose from the bridge to the tip, down beneath, in the dip above his upper lip. And he allows it, knowing it will lead to nothing good, nothing but more complications. Allows it because of how her eyes, brilliant and clear, meeting his as if she trying to dig up some courage. And he waits for it. Something is bound to happen. Him and her never able to remain in equilibrium for long. Someone is bound to rock the boat. She'll do something, she'll make sure to cause a reaction. Or he might. Wants to tell her; _'let's not fight.'_ Let's be kind, let's not be scared anymore.

"No worse off than before. Nurses fussing over me, left and right."

And why the fuck ain't they entangled in a heap of limbs in the backseat? It's been a while. _Too long. _Wants to bend his neck a little, bridge the distance. She's so near now and he could just hustle closer, just a little. Could just tilt his head and steal a kiss, silent as a thief in the night. Might lower her down and steal a whole lot more if only Danan would disappear. Marvels at how the dress forms itself around her midsection, its unlikely sensual curve. Doesn't want to talk about nurses or hospitals or anything at all, wants to explore this new contour of her. Map it out with skin, tongue and lips.

"Ha, yeah. I bet you took full advantage of their kindness." A little jealous, she has no reason to be. He's not blind, enjoys window shopping as much as the next man. But hell, the dry spell – it's ridiculous how he hasn't been able to break it. Holding out for her for months.

The delicate morning light flooding the car by now. The air warming up, little tiny drops of sweat on her upper lip like morning dew. How her fingers follow his jaw, a weird famished expression on her face. That wild-eyed, grubby beauty of hers. The feeling of having the key to her, just outside his reach. But if he makes just the right move, says the exact right thing – he might finally unlock her.

"Hell no. I'm a faithful man Freckles..." Bites down on his tongue. _Oh fuck it._

"Sure you are buddy." She has a little snooty-nosed way of saying it, her pride injured for some unfathomable reason. Retracts her hand and moves away from him, palms flat on the seat again. His devotion is as useful as an extra toe. Presumptuous to assume that she gives a fig for whether he's faithful or not. _He's not hers._

Danan stirs in the front seat. Rubbing his eyes in a contrived way that makes Sawyer think he's been awake for quite some time, eaves dropping. Turns around, taking in the sight of them in the backseat, sitting side by side like two imbeciles.

"Why don't you idiots kiss and make up already?" Reaches for the door handle unfolding his long legs outside, down on the street. "This is exhausting."

And Danan is right to scoff at them. They both need their heads examined, of this he's sure. How she gazes at him, lips a little open as if she's seriously considering the advice. And hell, if he were a man with balls worth their name he'd swipe away the ratty hair from her face and plant one on her right there, right then.

"I'll go get you two love-birds some breakfast then." Flashes that superior smirk before slamming the car door shut. They watch him saunter on down the sidewalk, looking pretty impeccable for having been out all night and slept in his clothes in a car seat.

"Ain't guilt a nifty little thing?" Sawyer says, not quite sure what he means himself. And that old satisfaction at getting to her, seeing her irritation, resurfaces. How her eyes flare up, ready to defend Danan before she remembers that she ought to hate him.

"Is it?" Snarky tone, how she kicks off muddy shoes and draws her feet up on the seat. They're both obstinate annoying people, just looking to pick a fight to pass the time. Always putting their worst forward, provoking one another with varying degrees of dedication.

"Well look at Gatsby, he's jumping through hoops for you, he's feeling so goddamn guilty."

Her knees pulled up, arms wrapped tightly around them. As if he might steal something from her. He wants to. Ravish her, raid her, grab everything he can get his hands on. He settles for reaching for her shoulder. Stroking the soft skin with the back of his fingers, how she feels glossy and warm. Wants to smoothen his lips against the skin there, follow the trail across collarbone towards that little dip at the base of her throat.

"He doesn't seem to be the only one," she says swatting him away. The smack across his fingers stings almost as bad as the words. He pretends as nothing. Sets his eyes on his next target. Her ear. Wants to follow it, touch the little plump lobe, rub it between fingers. Cocking his head to the side, moving closer still. "And can you stop doing that?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" _Guilty? Yeah, hell yeah. _If he isn't yet, he will be soon enough. He will have to leave her to support her. He'll be far off somewhere screwing some rich lady. Same as a prostitute, no more, no less. Will send his whoring money to her to pay off that guilt. How the fuck is he going to break the news to her? She still thinks they live in that wonderful lala-land where Hurley has his protective hand over them all. How will he tell her?

How will she be able to love that kind of man? A man with no honour, no integrity. No self-respect whatsoever.

"I think you know." Her arms wrapped around her own legs. Nose dipping down, behind the knee caps. Cheeks round, self righteous He's surprised she hasn't stormed out of the car yet.

He reaches out to touch her elbow. Trailing fingers upwards towards the lean muscular upper arms. Always loved this about her, how she is strong. _Not a frail little flower. _Not someone who bends easily.

"Hey, I seem to remember we were two that morning." She shrugs him off and he gives it a second before he's back again. Stubborn like a blood-thirsty mosquito. This time starting at her collarbone. Tracing it, rounding a her shoulder. Has no idea what the heck he's doing. Knows he's acting like an ass. "And you weren't exactly waving a condom in the air either Sugarpops."

This time she flicks him away like an annoying insect. Shakes her hair back so that it whips by his face. The faint smell of animal. Makes him light-headed and the way she shoves up a shoulder strap makes him want to pull it down. Run his tongue down her cleavage, deeper, further. _God. He won't ever be able to tell her. _About Hugo.

Can't see how he can. Leave it to Jack, he'll know what to do, what to say.

"I… oh, _asshole_." Crazily demure where she sits, blushing into her knees. And though she plays prim, he spots the beginning of a wry little smile that knocks him dead out. She might be scared but she's not sorry. He can see right through her and the exhilaration it brings – hadn't counted on it. Realizes that he isn't exactly sorry either. He might be later, when it all goes to hell. But right now, no – he doesn't regret it.

"I was worried sick about you..." His hand like a naughty spider, wandering off, sneaking up her back, naked above the sundress and a little cold between the shoulder blades. Lets the column of her spine guide his fingers up in under the hair. Takes a gentle grip across her neck. Stroking it roughly and the way she leans into his hand, stretches a little, is enough for him to know she isn't entirely opposed to him touching her. Might even be enjoying it.

"Well, you didn't have to be. I'm _fine._"

Engrossed in the way she warms up under his touch. Wants to… He's so damn predictable. A little bit of skin and all of his reservations, his wits, everything shot to hell.

"So... they treat you alright?"

Not a word about her sojourn with Dewi's little gang of rough necks.

"Yeah... sure." That's all he's going to get out of her. Gone for four days, and she doesn't even find it significant enough to talk about. Lifts her hair up above her pale neck, the curve delicate in a way that makes him want to protect her. Bundle her up in a big thick blanket and stand guard next to her. She makes a proper effort of shaking his hands. "Please stop doing that."

"Well hell, you wanna' talk about it girl?" No. She's going to want to keep it all inside.

"No." Nostrils flaring, staring icily at him. _Don't touch._ Snappy,_ 'none of your business' _kind of answer.

"You hurting?"

"No." And that's the way it'll be. One syllable answers and he'll have to drag them out of her, dredge at the bottom of this murky lake to get anything of substance out of her.

He doesn't expect it, how she lies down without warning, placing her head on his lap. Completely out of the blue. Knees drawn up, her ass hanging off the car seat and her cheek against his crotch. She casts a glance up at him, clear green eyes, fighting to look tough – but she looks more like she's asking his permission to trespass. She can take all liberties she wishes. He's an all inclusive buffet. _She can have it all._

His hands moving over her, struggling to find a place to keep them. They refuse to obey, to remain still somewhere decent. Naughty, eager, just wanting to touch her, wanting to sneak down the top of that sundress, up the skirt, over her ass. Want to follow the curve of her cheek, impossibly juvenile, rounded, trace berry-red lips. In around and out, everywhere. Ends up picking with her hair, the only neutral way to touch her, how it feels stringy and coarse between his fingertips. Unsatisfying.

"It's like..." The little pointed tip of her tongue sweeping over her lips, darting across. Wavering, looking away from him as if she's not sure he can be trusted.

"It's like what babygirl?" Follows her hair up to the ear. And there it is, the little warm velvety earlobe. A sharp plunge in her steady breathing when he rubs it with his thumb, letting fingers run down the side of her neck.

"Like carrying a time bomb."

The startling openness, how she lifts her armour off and bares herself to him. And she looks so small his throat knots itself. _Shit. _How the fuck will he be able to handle this? This. All her hopes, all her love, her sanity all rolled into one messy nest of human frailty and chucked his way. How will he care for her?

He sits there, passively, his hand finding rest on her hip. Wants to see what she gets up to. What she wants. He smoothens his hand over the fine curve, wishing away the denim. The perfection and precision, drawn at exactly the right angle to make him melt. Woman, frightened maybe – but woman. Not a little girl hiding from life. She is ready to talk and it makes him dizzy with hope. Maybe she's coming around, opening up to him. Finally, not running away.

"This... any time, it could be over." A tremble of her bottom lip, but this is courage. Even a dumb ass like him can see that it takes braveness to face up to this. The little bugger, just lying in wait to blow her up from the inside. Incinerate her.

Wants to say that she'll be just fine. That they'll both be, but how the fuck does he know? Grapples for words, the right ones, before she pulls back again. Like a shy turtle sticking her neck out. Doesn't want to scare her off. Gawks like a fool at her, in his lap. How she holds her hand over her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut tight. _Let it go baby._ Just let it fucking rip. Ain't got to play so damn brave with him.

"You ain't alone."

_For now. _He isn't exactly in a position to promise her anything. Still, he wants to.

"If it dies. I'll die too," she whispers and it angers him, hearing her talk like that. An urge to tell her not to be so fucking melodramatic. That if she loses it, it'll hurt like a bitch for the longest time. But she'll be alright. She has to be, with or without it.

Can't imagine anything else. Powerless, completely and utterly useless. That's what he is.

"I'm scared shitless too Freckles," his voice, hoarse and ugly. A man you can't depend on. "I hate that I ain't able to fix this."

Amazed at the way she relaxes. _Just like that._

How he feels her go all soft and pliable in his lap. Can't explain it. As if he's lifted a weight off her shoulders with those worthless words. She nestles down in his lap. His hand roving in under the hem of the dress, up above her hip. An craving to touch her skin. Nothing sexual about it or maybe it is. Maybe everything is with them. But mostly it's just a need to connect, the sensation of her skin warm under his palm. Finds her waist, all warm and silken under his fingers, a hint of goosebumps emerging under the tips when he strokes her. Shoving the sundress further up and she doesn't stop him. The modest belly, plump and perfect, poking out just enough.

How she feels under his greedily sprawled fingers. and he's momentarily sidetracked by the way her jeans don't button up, gapping wide open beneath that sweet stomach of hers. Beautiful like fucking Venus. The new ripeness that makes him dizzy, proud, cocky, horny and humbled. All at the same time. He did this. He somehow did this to her. A little wayward sperm, conquered her and made her blossom. More woman now, not an overgrown girl.

She closes her eyes then and he takes it as a permission to remain like that, his arm at an awkward angle, his hand over her stomach. A golden gleam around her or maybe that's his imagination. In spite of everything, regardless of how awful he ought to feel right now. Mouth watering, awakening a hunger he can't drive away. How she lies there in his lap, shimmering like a treasure. Can hardly believe it. How he's got her here, safe and sound.

And it would be all fine and dandy if it weren't for her cheek pressed against his dick, making it impossible for him to catch a wink. But Jayzus, if she could only budge a little. He moves his hand away from her abdomen and tries to shift her but she doesn't move.

And he might just be a sick old pervert but he can barely look at her there in his lap, her hair spread across his thighs. Looking wanton and unperturbed. Can't resist looking either. Her sweet pouty lips, scrumptious, sensual too damn close to his crotch, millimetres from his flies. Damn there looking like a triple layered cream cake with cherries on top as if none of this concerns her.

No. This won't do. Sitting here love sick and hornier than a teenage boy, imagining all sorts of delicious things. He better grow up, exercise some damn self-control. She's just been held hostage for four days, their best friend is dead and gone, she's scared witless about the kid and here he is, crude selfish bastard. And all he can think of, is her mouth on him.

Doesn't make it any easier, how she seems to be struggling to find a comfortable spot, grinding her cheek against him, while he's increasingly more uncomfortable. A swell he can't do anything about, straining against the denim. _Fuck it. Damn woman._

_It's been over three months._

He reckons it's been at least three fucking months and he can hardly be blamed for it, for reacting like this. He's only human for Pete's sake. Notices how her mouth twitches, ever so little. Damned tease. She knows exactly what she's doing. Ain't no one sleeping here.

"Cut it out," wheezes it half hoping Danan will come sashaying back right about now. Won't pull any stunts like this with him around. And how fucking long does it take to buy some goddamn breakfast? Bet the selfish sonofabitch is dipping chocolate croissant in his coffee this very moment, licking butter off his fingers and flirting with waiters.

"I'm trying to sleep." _Ha, right. _Doesn't fool him for a second. She's just entertaining herself. Payback of some sorts. And he can't say he minds all that much. A nice change to the tension in the car. Avoiding thinking of any serious issues. They're good at this, at escaping, at clowning around in the middle of mayhem, the world falling apart around them. Maybe it's not such a bad talent after all. Wants to indulge her, let her toy with him. Hell, if it makes her feel better for a few minutes, if it takes her mind off the crappy stuff, then why the hell not?

"Yeah well, sorry Freckles but your fidgeting is keeping something else bright awake."

Her eyes flicking open wide, looking straight ahead, at his crotch and it's not exactly subtle, the way the denim bulges. But he refuses to take any responsibility over it. _It's nature, there's no shame in that._ All her fault anyway. Let her feel embarrassed, because he damn well won't.

"I'm not doing anything." Innocent like a little white fluffy lamb, and he loves this. Nuzzling down in his lap and pushing her sweet face against him. The games they play.

"Yeah_ right._ You get a bit hot and bothered and all of a sudden old Sawyer is supposed to put out."

"I don't know what you're talking about. You're so full of it." Can tell she makes an effort to refrain from poking her tongue at him. But it's there, just behind teeth. Childishness never far away.

"At least I'm not full of bullshit. And normally this..." he gestures downwards. "I wouldn't have any objections to Honey, but with Fancy-pants lurking around in the shadows, sorry darling, no can do. I ain't no exhibitionist."

Thinks he can detect the pale beginning of a smile, the faintest little hint and it makes his chest puff up. Makes him smug, how he can distract her. He wouldn't exactly call it a smile but at least her eyes narrow a bit, like little half moons and that funny nose she's got, wrinkles up a hint. Or she might just be pissed off, that's an entirely plausible possibility.

"Don't' think you're his type Sawyer." The wicked defiance in those eyes, and how the morning sun hits the green through the car window. Bottle green and bright today. Has no idea what makes her tick exactly, how she works, only that they are alike in this. How one second it can be life and death, a battle of wills and the next - playtime, sparkly girlish eyes and a smile that can light up the darkest hour.

And sure, he'll play along, he can do nothing else. Addictive to be with her, when she's like this.

"Yeah, that may be, still don't wanna' get the poor fellow all worked up."

Damn her. Her face is grimy and dirty in the merciless daylight, studiously biting her bottom lip. It ought to be off-putting but it isn't. Something primal and sensual about her and earth and dirt. The way she'd been that first time, at the cages. Not exactly smelling like a rose and he hadn't given a fuck. Had enjoyed the unadulterated scent of woman, of the elements. And hell. It's better, this is a bazillion times better than worrying if she's hurt or if the spud is still alright. Wants to keep it light, manageable. Won't think of it.

"I don't think... I mean, he's got a pretty refined taste... " Her fingers traipsing along his belt. On the side of it, sliding along a little stretch of the leather between belt loops. Just that gesture is enough. Wants to say; 'girl, lets ditch the doctor. Lets get out of here.'

"Harhar, ain't you the funny one. Now, get the hell off my lap." Evicts her, just lifts her up and sets her back up in her seat. "You can look all you want, but there ain't no touching. Gotta' buy the cow first."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, if you want me you gotta' put a stake down." He isn't really joking anymore. He means it. A commitment, he wants her to give herself. To him.

"Stake?"

"A claim."

If she only knew how little it would take. Almost nothing. He's cheap. A little gesture, minimal commitment and he'd be hers for the whole fucking eternity. Him and her. Bickering, arguing, just like it ought to be. A warmth underneath that can easily be built on. Who knows what it could be kindled into, if only it got the attention it deserves. Wants to find out. Soon. If the kid is alright, he'll talk to her. Extract a promise of sorts. They'll sort it out. Somehow.

"Thank you," she whispers and his heart leaps and crashes to the ground.

"For what? I ain't done nothing."

"For not saying it'll be okay or some crap like that."

"Wouldn't dream of it." He wouldn't. Doesn't think it'll be okay at all. Just waiting for disaster to strike. God plays rough - in his experience.

She bends down to put her shoes back on. They are completely covered in mud. She must have been wading through sludge. Wants to ask her where she's been at, what she's been put through. But maybe another time, she might tell him because she wants to.

"I need some air." She opens the car door, swings her feet down onto the sidewalk and he feels like saying 'don't go'. They need to talk. For once, they need to have a proper adult conversation. Figure things out. What will happen next.

But he remains where he is, watching how she paces back and forwards near the car, waiting for Danan to get back. Beginning to think the bastard must have ditched them, unless he's buying breakfast in outer Mongolia.

Just then, he spots him, coming down the sidewalk, swinging a white paper bag in his left hand and what looks like a set off paper cups in the other.

...

The clinic isn't all that bad. Modern. All clean and white, large glass walls and elegant nurses.

Danan waits in a coffee shop down the road. Says he gets indigestion from hospitals. Sawyer does too but there is no decent way out of this. And today, this morning – he wants to do the right thing.

The waiting room is pure torture in itself.

He sits next to her on an orange plastic chair with a shape for an ass that no man alive can fit into. They are right next to the magazine stand, a grand mixture of publications in English, Indonesian and Japanese or Chinese or some other damn language he doesn't understand. He knows it bugs her sitting there. Her flittering glance around the room, landing too long on some poor hapless women about to burst. And they are different. He feels it now. How they are separate, isolated from the rest of the world. Not the same.

Hard not to gawp at the other women, stroking enormous pregnant bellies, smiling. Taking it all for granted while she can't trust her own body for five cents. He feels uneasy too, watching the fathers; how they slouch around relaxed, confident, bored. Just another damned kid. No biggie. Normal expectant parents. Not like him and her, scared witless, each on their own. Trepidation like a disjointed drum solo in his chest. Kate, strung like a bow, and him fucked-up and useless at this. Not happy, he's got no right to be and she doesn't dare something as outrageous as that. Not expectant, she's just frightened and he just can't see the good in this.

If she's alright, if she goes through this with flying colours – he'll have to tell her. Hurley. It will break her apart, will tear her heart out. She'll hate him for breaking the news. Knows already how she'll react. Guesses a childish outburst, pounding him with hard-knuckled fists. Tell him to 'take it back'. Has it all mapped out, prepared for it but it doesn't mean he might not postpone it. Delay it. Won't think of it now. He can only handle that much.

Tries to talk to her, tease her, make her loosen up a little, bring back the light ease they had for a while back in the car. But she's not biting. He quickly realize he's sliding down a dangerous slippery slide. She sneers at him to shut up or she'll personally kick him out of the waiting room.

Bites back a comment on emotional pregnant ladies and watches her on the sly, flicking through a women's magazine. She's ploughing her way through them too, one after another even the ones in Japanese. Reaches over every two seconds, rifling through the rack. And his hands are glossy with sweat leaving marks on the magazine he's leafing through. Some dumb girly thing, British or Aussie or hell, he doesn't know, tanned skinny women with pert boobs and shiny hair. Wants to find her a distraction, avoid the landmines hidden under every little tuft of grass.

"Hey, you read this one Pumpkin? 'Is he the one'?"

Just gives him a down-the nose glance. Detached, doesn't seem to care. Wants to tell her that if it's alright. If that thing is fine, he'll take her home, back to the hotel. Make love to her. Make her forget she was ever scared, pretend they are just like all those other couples. Nonchalantly waiting for their appointments because they are so dead certain they'll walk out of there with good news – with their kids still alive and kicking. Hell, they can even play that they're a couple too, not just randomly drawn in by that stupefying mutual attraction. He picks at her hair. Pulling a strand between his thumb and index finger.

Shows her the quiz. Some stupid two page spread with a lot of pink little hearts around an illustration of some skinny saggy-assed man. Not exactly a regular dream guy, unless the Aussie ladies have developed some weird preferences these days.

"What's the harm Freckles? Let's check it out. I might fit the bill perfectly?"

Her eyes rolling back in her head as if she's about to die. Waits for her to let her tongue hang loose too like in some cartoon.

"Go ahead. Make this day even more perfect than sitting in a room full of smug, belly-rubbing strangers."

They really are out of place. All Asian here. Which he's fucking grateful for. The less chance someone might spot her. He supposes all pink skinned folks look the same in their eyes.

"Okay then Jitterbug, here we go; 'I know we have real passion because every time we disagree we really go at each other'. Well, I'll be damned, ain't that just the truth?"

"Really Sawyer? We're doing this?" Glances at him warily, as if he's dangling a scorpion by it's tail in front of her. The eyelashes, long and he must ask her some time, how the hell she does it. Manages to look like a goddamn wet dream in filthy dirty clothes and greasy hair. Or maybe it's just him and his deviant preferences.

"Hey, just helping pass the time. True or false baby? You gotta' pick one." He pokes an elbow in her side. Christ, should have cleaned her up a bit before coming here. Among all the tidy little maternity frocks and freshly scrubbed faces, she stands out like a sore thumb. He feels strangely protective about her.

"False…" she mutters still making a show out of raffling through her own magazine. Japanese. Lots of pictures of boys with strange stiff hairdos and tight trousers.

"Liar. I'm gonna' tick true there 'cause otherwise it ain't worth doing."

"Who said it is?"

Delighted to have gotten her riled up. Better than having her sit there casting the evil eye on all the pregnant ladies.

"Now, now, play along girl. We might just be soul-mates." Holds it up to the light and continues reading. "His family drives me crazy, but I know I'm dating him and not his nutty bunch of relatives."

"We're not dating and you don't have any relatives." Gives him a brief 'fuck-you' glance before she pokes her nose into the Japanese teen rag again. As if she can read that crap.

"Aw don't be like that... We always have Uncle Herbert and Aunt Ethel. I'll tick true then, 'cause you know it'd be true."

"Yeah, they're a fine pair, those two…" An extravagant sigh, shrugging, giving up the struggle. "Yeah, go ahead, tick whatever you want."

He skips the next question. Some boring thing about remembering anniversaries. But the following one is just perfect. Bound to provoke a deliciously agitated reaction. He can't help smiling at the fact that she's so caught up squabbling with him, he hasn't caught her glaring at the smug dumplings in the waiting room for a while.

"Ah, this is a good one; 'I know he's completely hot for me because we never spend a night together without having sex."

"That's an easy one." Smiling. Finally. Feels like an eternity since he saw her using those muscles, pulling the corners of her mouth. Wants more. Wants teeth, a whole big row of them and that snorting laughter. "False."

"Yeah but you know it could be true. Could be true as hell." Relishing in how her cheeks go pink. Darn. It could have been like that, it almost was for a while. Spare the rare off night when she had felt the need to put her walls up. But mostly, it had been like that. And she remembers, he can tell by the way she flushes.

"Okay, move along buddy."

"Well, let us see here; he doesn't like it when I wear his old T-shirts, use his iPod or taste what he's eating (especially his dessert!)'. True or false honeybug?"

"True."

"Well you're wrong, I'd share my dessert with you any day, and my clothes, hell you can have them all girl. You know I'm a generous man." She hides her face behind a Japanese boy-toy wearing a striped t-shirt and red rubber shorts. The glossy paper held up like a shield. Giving him the silent treatment.

"I'm starting to think you're not very good at this relationship thing Freckles, you ain't got a single one of them right." Leers at her, loves the way she looks put out.

"Too bad. Maybe you're not the one then." And though she says if flippantly, just another joke, her words smart inside of him. Flicking up an old cut, the old insecurity.

"Oh I think the next will prove my point; 'we can tell each other anything, so our sex life is fantastic'. Yeah right, true. Definitely true." Demonstratively pointing at the question in the magazine.

"We don't have a sex life." Short and dry. Standing up to put her rubber-short wearing boy toy back into the magazine rack.

"Yeah well, alright you kill-joy; if we did, it'd be fantastic." He smirks at the next thing she comes sitting down with. Damn Russian or Korean or something, some weird letters on the front. But she pours over it as if it's the fountain of wisdom.

"Even if we did. We've never told each other everything." She pouts now, that red-lipped pout that sets something on fire within. Wants to kiss her. Nah. Bet she has a breath like a racoon after being held captive for four days. They'd probably not prioritized oral hygiene.

"Cause we ain't got to girl. We just know. Okay next; 'I know he's the one because I'd marry him tomorrow, barefoot, in the middle of a garbage dump and I'd still be happy'. True or false?"

Not that he cares much if she's brushed her teeth with a tree branch or not. Still wants her. Always does.

"Enough Sawyer. Enough! This is hard enough, I can't think when you keep yapping."

"That's the whole idea. Just answer the damn question Freckles."

"Piss off."

"True it is then. Cause you might be that. Tomorrow. Barefoot and in the middle of a garbage dump."

Crap. Can't tell her how true it really is. With Hurley gone, no source of income. Woozy when he thinks of it.

"You gonna' marry me James? That's the plan? You knock some girl up and that's the done thing – that's how you think? A pity marriage. You feel guilty Sawyer, that it?"

Something set in motion, something recklessly toyed with turning dangerous. Shrapnel shooting through the air. This is how it always is with them. They play, tease each other until one of them is wounded. Always. Like clumsy, cruel children.

"You know if you weren't so fucking stubborn and impossible, you might have been asked a long time ago." He for one would have asked her. Still wants to, even now when she looks like she is about to feed him razor wire. Looks down at her fingers. Trite and traditional, how he can imagine sliding a fucking ring on one of those ugly fingers, pledge his life to her.

He would too. If she'd only let him.

"Yeah, right. Well, don't bother. I've done this before. On my own. Nothing different this time around. You can go, no need to feel guilty"

Part of him knows it's the fear speaking. For her, and for him. Still, he's unable to stop himself. Restraint – zero.

"I don't feel guilty. I have nothing on my conscience." Only Hurley, only knocking her up, only letting the whole fucking world falling apart. Only that.

"Yeah? That's why you're here? It has nothing to do with… with the…?"

"Look at you, you can't even say it. It's a goddamn baby Freckles! Yours - and - mine."

How she looks shaken up, rattled out of her little protected cocoon. As if it comes as a big fucking surprise. His – and – hers.

"I don't have to say it. Don't need to talk about everything." She's a moron, and so is he. How long are they gonna' do this?

"Obviously."

"Ibu James?" A little startled, the name like a caramel. Or it might have been, under other circumstances. Something to savour, suck the sweetness out in the midst of all their bitterness. She could have been his. Could have fucking been Mrs. James. Had he handled everything with a little bit more finesse and sensitivity than an armoured battle tank in a rose garden.

The little Indonesian nurse waves them in, dainty trim little figure in white sturdy shoes.

He takes charge of her because he can see her heart beating harder, can almost hear it. How her pulse is visible at the base of her neck. The way she swallows hard, repeatedly, how she sets her feet down, one after another, reluctantly. A sheen of sweat covering her grungy face. And he loves her then. No fuck it - he pities her. The hesitation visible in every fibre of her. Eyes shifty, searching, grappling for an escape route.

"Come on, I've got you."

"I can't go in. I lost the blanket..." Her voice too high pitched. As if she has regressed and is suddenly ten years old and scared of the darkness.

"What has that got to do with any damned thing? Come on, you can do this girl."

"No... I lost the ring too."

Almost frogmarches her inside. He treats her like a fugitive, ushering her in front of him brusquely. The ring. She must be confused. That fake cheap ring he bought her. It means nothing. Wants to tell her that now is not the time, she has to keep her chin up, tough it out, feet forward like a good girl. Bending down over her shoulder to whisper in her ear, not sure what he's going to say until it's already out.

"No matter how this goes down Freckles. I am 'the one', ain't nothing you can do about it. Don't need no goddamn ring for that either."

Not the right thing to say.

Just like that, she digs her heels in. Struggles, backs up just outside the doctor's office. Like a stamp slicked against the wall, pressing herself flat to it. And he's never seen her like this. Face a stiff mask, a caricature of fear.

"Come on girl. Just one more step. I'm right behind you." Makes his voice pecan pie soft, exaggerating it. Knows it calms her, his stupid accent, but now – it does nothing. Panic already setting in.

"No. I can't." Swinging her head around towards him. Eyes round and insane, too much of the whites visible. He has a hard grip around her arms. Won't let her run. Baby-girl. Wishes he could take it away from her. Having to be so damned scared of a stupid doctor. But he and his careless urges have seen to it. He did this to her. She inhales, rasping, struggling for air, like an asthmatic. Eyes glazed over by now. Not really seeing him.

"No." It's more a growl than a word. Cornered, threatened, might lash out, any second now. He has to rear this in. Before it gets out of control.

"Hey Doc, give us a moment, we need the ladies' room for a sec."

The nurse gestures at a door at the back of the waiting room. She seems miffed at the delay, the outrageousness of keeping the busy doctor waiting. He bundles her inside. Fast, fast. Oh fuck. The girl is hyperventilating and he has to get a handle on her. His palms are slippery with perspiration when he locks the toilet door behind them. Sits her down on the closed toilet seat, crouching in front of her, his chin on her knees. His hands smoothing up and down her thighs, trying to squeeze her hands while she just hangs her head and breathes like she has a goose stuck in her windpipes.

"Hell, get a grip Freckles. Ain't nothing that can hurt you in there." He is weak, useless, he can't do anything for her but brush her messy hair back from her face. Trying to make her focus on him, sober up. She has to. He can't do this on his own.

The stupid bickering in the waiting room. Hell, he's definitely not the one for her. He's not ready for this, isn't old enough, experienced enough, good enough, strong enough. Doesn't even know if she loves him. Can't stake a single claim to her, spare that sneaky little asshole-sperm that had caused this whole debacle in the first place.

"It's dead. I know it." The absolute certainty alarms him. Maybe she knows something he doesn't. Maybe it really is too late. No, he's got to be stronger. Has to be the one grounding them. For now.

"It might be. But you won't know until we check." Strokes her face with both his hands, almost roughly, thumbs brushing across the top of her cheek bones. He has to say the magic words, whatever they are. He has to find a way through.

"I can't. Not. Again." Clips off the airflow. The words spoken in staccato.

"You and me. Whatever happens in there, ain't nothing can change that." Sits on his knees, raises himself up a little so that his nose almost touches hers. Fingers just beneath her eyes, caressing her skin outwards. Wiping away tears that are not there. How she shields herself, eyelashes down. Wants to tell her to just look at him. He'll get her through this. Anything. But that's empty promises. He has no idea how to handle her, how to comfort her. He knows sex. That's his only goddamn triumph card and it's obviously not what's needed here.

"We're not... even together." How her face twitches, taut with tension.

Has a sudden urge to go scurrying down the street, hail down a cab and get the hell out of here. Can send cash every few months, send the kid a postcard too. Doesn't need him.

Needs him too much. Wants to say sorry. Wants to tell her to run with him, away from here. Maybe she's right, maybe ignorance is bliss. To hell with being grown-up, to hell with doing the smart thing. Doesn't want to see no goddamn doctor either. If the kid is dead he doesn't want to know. Not yet. She has the right idea and he's got no right to tell her how this should be dealt with.

"That's bullshit and you know it. It's been you and me from the fucking beginning." Just talks, out of his ass probably. Just keeps the words coming. Maybe somewhere in there, there might be something for her to hold onto, to grab onto before she drowns. "Even when there was Jules and Jackass in the concoction, it was still you and me. Ain't no other way."

Backs away just enough to see the effect of his words, how she just stares at him. She might hit him. He knows she might, it's that kind of reaction he's grown to expect from her. Violent, raw, rough when cornered. It seems like a split second decision, like she has a person pulling her strings. Eyes boring into him, her lips opening.

Thinks he knows her. Thinks he can predict what she will do. But this. He doesn't see it coming. It's the last thing he expects.

_Still, it's no dream._

How she reaches around his neck and tugs him to her. Hard. Soft. Coffee flavored and though he ought to know better he can't deny her. Gives as good as he gets, strong tongue opening her up wide. His hands remaining on each side of her face, bracing him, keeping him from collapsing completely onto her. His knee caps against the hard tile floor. Her butterfly touch under his hair, moving carefully as if he's a scorching hot stone. Her fingertips taking long licks along the little hairs at the nape of his neck.

She. And this kiss, it owns him.

"I want you." The voice that shatters ever so slightly and his heart explodes. There is no other way to describe the white light blinding him, embracing him. Swallowing him up. 'You and me'. And do the angels sing? Do the saints reach down and caress his hair? Do little unicorn come dancing out of fluffy white clouds, with a silver lining and all? _Yeah well, fucking damn close._

"So. Take me! You want me, just _take_ me, goddammit." A hard rap on the door. She gawks at him, as if he has just revealed the solution to some age-old mystery. And instead of pulling apart, she comes in for more. Hungry, difficult to please. Trying to take more, take everything from him.

Wasn't prepared for this. Hell, there was no way he could have seen it coming. Her warm hands in a steady grip on his head. Pulling it towards her, saying nothing, saying everything he needs to know. He smells her, earthy, sweat and fear mixing with something new, something powdery and warm. A fragile kind of strength. The scent of impending motherhood maybe. Whatever it is - _it has a hold on him._

"It ain't no big fucking secret, you can do what the hell you want with me," he murmurs against her lips, her tongue. How she huffs, breathing heavily for a different reason now. He returns with a series of little kisses, childish soft pecks along her upper lip, aimed at giving her courage. No, not aimed at anything - just because he can. Because he wants to. Because she lets him.

Because she tastes like honey, like manna from heaven. Like she belongs to him.

The games, the pretending, it's over. He'll wear his goddamn heart on his sleeve from now on. Won't hide a thing. It's here, what he's been waiting for, for so long. She's come to him. She's here and she wants him and he doesn't hesitate, he doesn't doubt.

She's his.

"The doctor is waiting Mrs. James." The nurse outside, impatient with them now. Hell, they're going to lose their appointment but how can he let go now? After all this time. If she wants to cling to him, how can he bend her fingers away from his collar? But she seems to sit up a little. Looks at him fixedly. Something new about this. A sense of fortitude that wasn't there before. How a kiss, a few words can change everything. He did that. After all the shitty things he's done, he somehow did this.

"We gonna' do this Freckles?" And the way her chin dips, ever so little. He could have easily missed it. But it's there, affirmative. A proper nod, dark hair falling across her cheeks, tickling him.

He straightens up, brings her with him. They stand there, together for a second, wavering. Her hand clasped in his. Like two children facing an uncertain world. Hansel and Gretel about to brave the dark forrest.

"No matter what happens, alright?"

"Yeah."

"We'll talk later. Alright? About everything."

"Yeah... okay."

The courage it must take to make her come out of that bathroom, walk through the waiting room, the dense masses of normal happy women and over the threshold to the doctor's office. Wants to give her a fucking medal. Pin it to her chest right now. She's been through more shit than he cares to think of. Still, she swallows panic and lets herself be shepherded back.

_However, whatever._ In a few minutes they'll know.

...

He exchanges a confident man-to-man handshake with the little doctor, plays the role of a father but he doesn't feel any ownership. It's just like running another con.

She's a zombie sitting there staring at the diplomas behind the doctor's desk. Like a ghost of a girl. Empty eyes and fists clenched hard in her lap. Knows what she's doing, shutting everything out so that nothing can get to her. Preparing for the worst.

_He doesn't. _Can't even stand thinking of it.

The ultrasound, like some ancient torture machinery and nearly scares the pants off him. She's paler than normally, face striped with dirt, inexpressive like a blank mask. She lifts the dress up baring her middle. Fixating on the neon light above her. Distant, as if her body already doesn't belong to her, as if she has nothing to do with any of this. He tries to hold her hand but she pulls it away, freezes him out and his heart sinks. Had thought that maybe now, maybe now she might let him in. Might try to take strength from him.

Realizes that it's naïve to think it might change like that. This is the only way she knows how to deal.

The breech between them, wonders what it'll take to bridge it. The boy inside of him, the one who isn't cynical, who loves easily and knows how to give and take freely - he whispers;_ time. _That's all it will take. Time and an angel's patience. But the grown James Ford doesn't quite believe it.

He ought to fix her some new clothes. The burden of it all making him slouch where he stands next to her, staring dumbly as the doctor smears some jelly lubricant thing on her abdomen and places the wand there. Ends up gaping at her bloated tummy, scared stiff.

If that thing is dead, he'll run.

Put his legs on his back and get the hell out of there. Won't be able to take it, watch her sorrow. Nose stuffy and his throat scratchy, emotions he didn't even know were there. Emotions he'll fight tooth and nail. Coughing self-consciously into his fist to clear his throat. Looking away from the belly.

Her face turned away from the monitor, away from him too. His blood pumping hard, hard. A terror so large, he can't blink, can't move a muscle. The silence hanging over the room, the suspense making him sit there rigid on the plastic chair next to her. What is it supposed to look like?

He doesn't understand any of it. And hell, he feels nothing. Ain't got any sort of gooey- lovey-dovey sentiment about that weird creature. That thing, it doesn't even seem remotely human. And when will the damned quack say it's alright so that he can breathe again?

_The sound_.

Doesn't realize what it is he's hearing at first, like something pulsating at the bottom of the sea. Lots of static. A quick rhythm that stresses him out. The heart beat. Hadn't expected it. It hasn't been real before.

_But it is now._

Real. Alive. The bone legs and arms moving on the screen, the whole thing flipping over.

"Look, very active. Perfectly normal." The doctor grins at him, his broken English tearing down, bulldozing down any protective walls he had left – just like that. _And fuck, _it has him almost passing out. A curtain of black sweeping across his vision. Something alive in her, something that scares her witless, frightens her more than anything, and him too. Too much riding on it.

Suddenly worried about the skeleton baby too. How his heart is chockfull with an inexplicable love for it. For her. Touching his breast pocket. The cardboard picture, it means something. Now. Isn't sure he's happy about that, no hell, he's not. Better to feel nothing. This is terrifying, absolutely gut-crushingly horrifying. How will he live with this? So fragile.

He's not prepared for any of it. _Fuck it._ He's screwed as it is. Doesn't need this sort of emotions now. He certainly doesn't welcome it, this wretched longing to protect the creature. Her happiness, and by ripple-effect also his all hinging on the safety of that little thing.

Something happens to her too.

She breaks her isolation. He watches in disbelief as she rolls her head over so that she is staring straight at him. This time he doesn't take her hand, he knows better. Hell, he's so far outside of his comfort zone, he might as well be in a different universe. But it's on his tongue, the things he would like to say to her. A promise. Wants to say something about that thing, about him and her and that bond that exists, whether they want it or not. That look on her face, a radiance that makes him weak. The way it tugs at her mouth, a puny, hardly perceptible little stiff smile. Barely there. But he sees it, transient and brief as it is, how her eyes light up on him.

She blinks slowly. Once. Some kind of code.

_We're alright now._

Sees her hope awakening. Finds that there is a sort of symmetry to this, her budding hope and him finding himself completely defenceless against her. And _that. _Against that freakish thing on the screen.

This is how it happens. This morning, in this room. How a man changes, becomes more than just a selfish douchbag with a shady past. How he gives himself away, with no reservations, no second thought. Signing over his whole existence – to the two of them. To a woman and the vague, improbable possibility of a child. _Theirs._

She loves him, he can feel it. The way she just holds his eyes, stable and certain now. He can hear her speak silently to him, shouting it, saying it, whispering it. It's about time something finally fell into place, time to be brave, find courage in each other. _Will never let you go. _Doesn't need to say it out loud, he hears her. Her heart, his heart intermingled; hoping, longing, wanting the same thing – echoing in the bare examination room.

Like this. _Exactly like this. _This is how it begins.

...

_I really hope you liked it and that super-soppy Sawyer wasn't too out of character, he sort of went really soft at the end._

_This will be it for a little while. Going away for the holidays and won't have easy access to internet . But we are definitely nearing the end... thank you so much for hanging in all this time. Have a great Christmas and see you next year!_


	39. Another carte blanche

_Wedging the door open, peering inside. Anybody here? Party over? Some trumpets and confetti trampled on the floor. If anyone is still around, belated Happy New Year (and Gong Xi Fa Cai to those who celebrate that). I hope you enjoy this which was supposed to be my second last chapter but has mutated and snowballed into the third last. Javajive has stage fright. Be gentle._

_Rated: NC17/Mature for language and sexual content._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, not really._

...

**Another carte blanche**

...

A wall of humid heat swallows them outside the clinic, sweat dripping down his back, spreading in big wet spots under his arms. Equal amounts of panic and tropical moisture. Craning his neck, trying to see beyond the curb, hoping to spot Danan with the car. Better get here soon. He's falling apart by the second.

And there on the bustling sidewalk. It hits him, explodes like a grenade in the gut. _He is going to lose her._

Hurley is dead_. _The rules of the game have changed, _baby_. He has nearly maxed out his credit cards. The savings from the last con he pulled are depleted. He is going to have to go back, find a mark - start from scratch again. Nobody to fall back to. No generous Hugo to prop them up anymore. It's all on him now. He's got to bring home the bacon.

How is he ever going to tell her? Her maddening fidgeting does nothing to calm his nerves. Squirming, moving non-stop. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The plastic bag packed to the gunwales with needles and drugs, dangling in her hand hitting his thigh with every second swing. And he just wants to bite her head off, his guilt transformed into irritation.

She keeps glancing up at him. Eyebrows arched, posing a permanent question he can't answer. Doesn't want to. Freckles sprawling, seemingly popping up by the second, courtesy of the broiling sun. Looks at him as if she trusts him, believes in him.

He's a fraud. His cruel _'you and me'_ - alluding to a future that is nothing but a fantasy. All the things he said, can't follow through on any of them.

_Speak now. _He has no justification for delaying it any longer.

Wonders how it'll go down. Will she hit him? Run, cry or have another heart-stopping crisis? Tries to plot it out, plan the flow, but it's like drawing up your own suicide. Only darkness looming on the other side.

He'll say that he's got to go away for a while, but he'll come back as soon as he can. That far, she might have her brow pulled up, expectant, listening. Beyond that point, once she understands how he's planning to support her, there is a definite possibility he'll be in physical pain. Or dead. '_It won't mean anything. Just business,' _he'll say. If he's still breathing and his jaw isn't shattered.

"So the guests? Are they still here in Bali."

"All gone Sugarpop, Danish pastries have flown the coop, asshole is in jail and the rest packed off home as well."

He's sure Cassidy has told her everything, how he does it. How he went about to get to con her, to pull her in. Much more, much trickier than sex. The succeeding in making the markfall so hard for him she'll trusts him without reservation. He's not sure he can do it again. Everything is different now. He's different.

"Oh... We must be losing so much money. And the new guests? The ones we were supposed to pick up in Jakarta...?"

"Yeah, well that don't matter no more. We ain't bringing her to Jakarta no more darling."

"Because of me...?" Dropping her chin low, biting her thumb nail. Wants to tug the thumb away from her teeth. Fears she might bite the nail bloody the way she's gnawing at it.

No, because the boat isn't theirs to bring anywhere anymore. Belongs to Hugo's grieving mother. Hell, this won't work. He can't do it. Shouldn't be expected to. Wants to take her fingers between his, refuse to ever let go. Let someone try to pry him off her with a crowbar. But instead he thrusts his hands into his pockets. He's not '_the one'_. He's nobody. He is just another schmuck who couldn't be bothered with a rubber.

Watches idly as she balances on the high cornerstones of the sidewalk, buses and motorbikes swishing by. Wavering, looking like she might topple over any second. A family of three on a Vespa, five dozen live chicks in a bouquet tied together by their feet, swerving by a few inches from her. His heart shooting up in his throat. Doesn't think, flings his hand out, yanking her back from the edge.

"Hey, what's your problem?" In a huff about it. _Yeah_, she is so sure she can do this on her own. She won't even consider accepting his help. That pride, the baffling fear of letting him take care of her. But hell, he can't blame her for not taking his filthy loot.

"Just try not to fall under a bus alright. I ain't dragging your sorry ass to another doctor today."

Oh, but he would. He'd lug her around all day long like a sack of potatoes if it meant he didn't have to tell her. Steals a glance at her middle. A real fucking baby in there. Poor little sod_._Who will be there to look out for it? She'll have herself killed without him. And he knows it's a preposterous thought because she'd lived a quarter of a century before he ever knew she existed. But it's different now.

_She's his. _And that fishy little acrobat, flipping around in there, it's _his_ too. So poignantly his, he can't seem to find his footing again.

A young man hauling along an enormous basket piled high with flowers and temple offerings, stops on the sidewalk. A blinding smile, white teeth in a dark face. Selects a an ugly yellow thing and sticks it behind her ear. Just like that, in passing, only to continue on his merry way along the sidewalk.

Tries to pretend he's not soaking up the image of her, storing it, tucking it away for later. _Later._ When he'll be squashed into his economy seat with the knowledge that she won't ever want to see him again. Will embalm his pain in airplane liqueur, hoping to crash.

How she stands there blowing out her cheeks as if she's filled them with water, just waiting for the right moment to let go. Releases the air slowly, lips in a little 'O', looking up and down the street, trying to seem casual and indifferent. _But he sees it._

Her furtive little smirk, not aimed at him, just the kind of inward smile that can't be suppressed. Struggling to straighten her face. How she pretends to gaze down the street, searching for Danan. Wants to kiss her, there and then. How she's gone out on a limb. Unprecedented braveness.

The skeleton kid with the heartbeat like a radio signal, ticking away like nobody's business. Still alive, still fucking alive and if that ain't worth celebrating, he doesn't know _what_ is. But he can't meet her eyes, his throat tight and drier than a sandpit. He's sweating like a roasting pig, the smell of his own perspiration mixing with the nauseating stench of impending betrayal. Once he tells her. It'll all be over.

"Are you okay James?"

No. Not okay. He's going to lose her. As clear as water.

"Yeah. Sure."

"So what... what happens now?" _With us. _The two last words silent but she might as well have screamed them the way they ricochet in his head.

_What happens now?_ He ends up just staring down at her, lost for words. How he wants this. To go the long haul – with her. Ensnared in one another, like Siamese twins sharing vital organs, impossible to separate without injuring both. Soul mates, hell, he doesn't know. But with Hurley gone, it's no longer about pride. It's survival and he's got to find a way to support her.

"I said; what happens now James?" When he doesn't answer she elbows him to command his attention. As if a second passes when he's not acutely aware of her, watching her on the sly. That yellow flower like a sun in her dark hair, sucking him in. Knows only what he wants.

Wants to go home with her. Wherever that is. _Home. _Wants to wrap himself around her like a blanket, hold her so hard she won't be able to fight him when he tells her. _Hugo's gone, baby. Hush, we'll be alright. We'll find a way._

"I don't know, _alright_!" Hates how his voice comes out, how he snaps, taking it out on her. "And can you stop that darn fidgeting for Pete's sake. It's really beginning to chap my ass."

To his dismay, she tears the yellow flower from her hair, crushing it in her hand. Lets it drop to the ground, yellow petals around her feet. And it's all his fault.

"I'm not fidgeting." She shuts her mouth tight, holding onto that plastic bag with both hands, shoulders pulled up tight. He reaches over to push away some hair from her face, and instinctively the hand holding the plastic bag flies up, accidentally knocking her the face.

"Cut it out." She takes a swipe at him only to move in closer as if that's the natural sequence. Hit, _approach_. That schizophrenic logic of hers. She glides right up beside him, like there is an empty slot next to him. Just waiting to be filled by her. Thrusts away the inevitable image of him and her in a bed, sheets all messed up, another slot he'll never fill again.

Her fingers, spidery, tentative, finding his. Laces them together, a little hard and insistent forcing hers in between his. Standing so close they float together, mesh with one another. All definitions blurred. Her head briefly leaning against his shoulder. And his heart, his dumb old heart that ought to know better, gallops away in his chest like a spooked rhino, heavy and graceless. The affectionate little rub of her forehead against his upper arm, God, he's missed her. But he can't fall this, nuzzling up girlfriend – boyfriend routine now.

Shouldn't fan the sizzling need for physical closeness. But it doesn't take much. Her fingers stroking between his own, palm against palm. As if she trusts him. He feels like he's pulled a fast one on Bambi. Has spread false hope around like manure on a rose garden. The cruellest con in his life - making her love him.

Fuck his fucking fertile sperm count and the horse it rode in on. He's going to get snipped. Should have done it years ago. They might still have had a chance if it weren't for the goddamn kid. Could have pulled some short-cons together, could have remained on the run, moved from country to country in South East Asia. But he'll not be able to make a decent living lugging around that poor little bugger in a Baby Bjorn.

Still. Even now. The thought of that bony, inconvenient little freak is comforting like warm, freshly baked corn bread. Something beautiful, a part of him and her. Something that can't be sullied.

"I didn't think it'd be okay." She says it to the street, to the vendor walking by with a bamboo stick across his shoulder, a mini kitchen hanging off each end. Plates, pots and some kind of home made cooker. The smell of garlic and spices wafting by. His stomach growling, protesting out aloud.

He doesn't answer her. Just squeezes her hand once and slips out of her grip feeling like Judas. And thank God, there is the rental car stopping right in front of them. Spots his own reflection in the dark car window. His hair like a troll's, his jaw covered in days old scruffy stubble. Looks every bit his age and he feels about a hundred.

Just as she reaches to open the back door, he snatches hold of her wrist. She spins her head to look at him, a little bug-eyed. Time to dig up a backbone, find his balls. Do the right thing. Tries out the words. Forms them behind his teeth, rolls his tongue around them. _Honey,_ Hurley bit the dust, he's gone, dead_. _Ain't no more Hugo, baby.

_Let me take care of you. Let me. Let me._

"Hey Princess, you and me got to have a little heart-to-heart, figure this out, alright? We've got to decide what we'll do about… you know…"

She doesn't answer, throws her face away from him.

...

She expects him to jump in next to her. Instead he walks around the car and sits up front. A clear separation from her, distancing himself from her, even physically. As if he's making a statement. He'll take care of her, because he has to. Not because he wants to.

"Where to, lovebirds?"

Lovebirds indeed. He shrugs demonstratively and Danan looks at her in the back-mirror, raised brow, as if she's supposed to know.

'_You want me you gotta' put a stake down'._ That's what he'd said. As if it was really that easy. _'I'm the one.'_ She doesn't understand the mood swings, can't keep up with them. Traces the sequence of events backwards, step by step. Somewhere after hearing that heartbeat, he had lost his way.

"You okay back there?" It's Danan who asks. Sawyer sits face forward, a stubborn hard angle to his neck that she recognizes. He doesn't ask. _'I'm the one.' _Damn him. Just throws it out there, making it echo in her head only to turn around and behave as if it never happened. Tetchy and volatile. Something is up with him. And this is usually her part, the not wanting to talk while he pushes on, mauls down barriers forcing a reaction. Or heck, she doesn't know. Maybe they are both the same and it's impossible for the two of them to ever be upfront and honest.

"Yeah." She can't say anything else because she's afraid the dam will burst. Wipes her nose on her arm. No, damn it, she won't cry. She won't.

She looks out through the side window. _He didn't mean it_. Sits up front right now, regretting what he said in there. _'You and me Freckles. Take me.'_ It's all bullshit, just to get her to see the doctor. And she doesn't want to cry. She blames the building pressure on being tired. The burning sensation in her eyes, the water works, she blames that on the fact that she hasn't had any proper food, spare a coffee and a croissant, in ages.

"It was fine right? The little con-artist was thriving, right?" Almost enough to make her smile. He looks at her in the rear view mirror and she's still trying to get used to the way his nose is a little off, a little asymmetric. Sawyer had done that, on her behalf. It seems such a long time ago. Ancient history.

"Yeah yeah yeah, everything is hunky dory. Now could you just concentrate on the damn driving?" What was that back at the clinic_? 'Take me'? _How is she supposed to 'take him' when he's got a million razor-sharp spines out? It's all wrong and she doesn't want to be here.

"Did you tell her you quit smoking Daddy?"

Realizes it is true the moment Danan says it. All night long and not one time did he fish around in his pocket for his cigarettes. He's trying to be a good man. _For her._ Making sacrifices she never asked for.

"Just butt out asswipe."

"Sure Bucko'... So what's next for our little dysfunctional family?"

The word family just jars her ears. Evidently his too the way he bares his teeth at Danan.

"Just shut up. Bring us back to the Emporium."

She knows he wants a family. Knows it. He has a sweetness inside, that longing for the conventional that clashes so violently with the rest. But she isn't _it_. Can never have that with her. Baby or no baby, she'll still always be on the run. He'll never be able to settle down, put up that white picket fence with her.

"Katie girl. You on board with that? You want to go with... well with _him_?" How easy it would be to just go along, to follow Danan instead. To leave him here and now.

"You can stuff that Doctor Phil hogwash bullcrap."

"You can come with me. You can crash at my place while you figure things out." Danan adjusts the rear view mirror so that he's able to see her better.

_Yeah. _She could. She could leave Sawyer to his brooding. Could let him off easily. Humiliating to have him feeling obligated to take care of her. How he tries so hard to do the right thing.

"No she ain't _crashing_ anywhere Tiddlywinks. You'll have to find someone else for your giggly pyjama parties. _She'_s a goddamn fugitive if you haven't forgotten."

Danan ignores him, eyes on the road as he takes a tight corner, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a vegetable truck. And then back at her, those obscenely long lashes.

"You know Katie, not a day goes by that I don't regret it... what I did."

Lifts her shoulders up, shrugging it off. Is surprised to find that she doesn't hate him. More effort than it's worth. There is only so much one person can hold on to.

And she wants to move on. He can have her forgiveness for what it's worth.

Sawyer's big head swivelling around in a ninety degree, pissed-as-hell turn. Brow pulled low, furrows digging in deep between the eyes and his jaws clamped together. She knows that look. When he's like this, something is bound to be broken. Glowers silently at her before he returns to staring ahead through the wind shield.

Doesn't understand what happened. The kiss at the clinic. He'd responded, she is sure of that. But then again, a kiss is one thing, another altogether to realize that you are saddled with a kid.

His shoulders broad and so rigid in the seat in front of her, he looks like he might crack. A yearning to reach out and touch him, rub the tension out of those muscles. Wants to ask him to talk to her. But she is afraid she won't want to hear what he has to say.

_Can't do this, so sorry Freckles._

...

They stop at a traffic light and Danan winds down his window. Clicks his fingers and a kid hoists a bucket of drinks up for him to pick from. Buys her a water and himself a soda pop. Nothing for old Sawyer.

The hot air entering the car. It's like sticking your head into a gas oven. The exhaust from the other cars, lead like grit between his teeth. Shit. He wants to throw himself off the car. Make a run for it. Grappling for straws, trying to stay above the surface. Maybe she won't have to know what kind of projects he picks up. Could invent something. Maybe she'd never have to know about the women, the whole long tiresome seduction, the luring them in, making them fall in love with him. The lunacy of it isn't lost on him. Still, he snags onto the idea as if it's a lifebuoy.

If he finds the right kind of project, one that doesn't require he brings his dick into the game. She might forgive him then. She might even agree to wait for him to return. But that's just desperate daydreaming, it won't do him any good. Won't be able to rake home nearly enough on something like that. He's got one speciality, and one only.

He cons women because he's fucking great at it.

And even those skills have a shelf-life. Ten years down the line his looks and his brand of wily charm will have turned sour, will seem sleazy and contrived and he'll fool no one. If he's going to save up a nest egg for her. Now is the time.

"So the baby is fine," Danan's pathetic attempt at small talk when the uncomfortable silence becomes too long. "That's got to be a relief huh?"

"Yeah." Sitting back there biting at her fingernails. One arm hugging herself. Feels pretty good to see someone else on the receiving end of those infuriating single syllable answers. Waits for some sort of confrontation. There must be all sorts of ugly things bubbling under the surface.

"Well, congratulations... I guess."

The smug sonofabitch has the nerve to say it. Congratulations? Well_ con-fucking-gratulations_ on being knocked up by the world's biggest douchbag. _Congrats_ darling,your friend and benefactor has just blown himself to pieces and your baby's daddy is about to do a runner.

_God_, the car is hot. Not nearly enough air. Couldn't rent a car with proper functioning air conditioning, could he?

The driveway towards the Emporium is lined with pink Frangipani trees so dense with flowers there is hardly any green on them. A surrealistic candy pink taunting him. _You'll never have this,_ it whispers. Never have something beautiful. It'll soon be over.

He starts walking towards the main building, while she lingers there by the car with Danan. The two of them the picture of an extremely awkward prom-date. Half expects that slick sonofabitch to pin a fucking corsage on her any damn second now.

"Ain't you coming Sweetcheeks?" He calls out as if he couldn't care less. But it freaks him out, how she remains with Danan. As if she might be considering taking him up on his offer.

"Just want to... first." She looks like she's been caught cheating. A little red-faced, shrugging and looking the other way. Wants to..._ what_? She _better _want to string that lowlife up by the balls after what he did to her.

"Alrighty then. Tearful goodbye and all that. Take your fucking time." Doesn't like it. _At all_. How she isn't rabid with the fellow, just calm and eerily collected. "I'll just wait over here."

"You do that Cowboy," Danan tosses after him. Wasn't so damn cool last night, with the Russian Soprano's and their little hostage exchange or whatever the hell you call what they had accomplished.

Sawyer saunters off a bit further, in the ruse of giving them some privacy. Standing there like a fool, wishing he hadn't gone quite so far. Can't hear anything but the muffled mumble of their voices, quietly restrained and calm.

_Hell,_ why can't he do that?

Danan has done far worse by her, still, he just sails right in here and seemingly manages to carry off a completely civilized conversation. No fists flying, no crying or shouting. He'll jump into that car in one piece too, the lucky sonofabitch, forgiven and absolved of all his sins, Sawyer is certain of it.

He's about to keel over when she reaches up to caress the cheek of that twerp. Impossible to miss, even from here how she smiles softly at him. Danan rubbing her upper arm affectionately. _No, hell no! _He cons her, kidnaps her baby, ruins her life and then – voila' - forgiveness pulled out of a hat. Just like that.

She sashays over towards him, airy steps as if a weight has been lifted. They stand there side by side on the Emporium's driveway watching the rental car disappear around the curve. His fists clenched hard by his sides, nails digging into the palms of his hands. An indignation he has no right to, seething inside.

As soon as Danan is out of sight, he turns to her.

"Really Freckles? _Really!_ Just – like – that?"

"_What_?" She looks genuinely confused. The sweet pouty face, her pointed chin lifted up towards him.

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me?" He should be on his knees begging for mercy, instead he's wound up and mean, itching to pick a fight. _Perfect_, just perfect.

"What are you on about?" Blinks, playing dumb, she must know how that sugary innocence never, _ever_ fooled him.

"Hell Freckles, that guy stole your fake goddamn sister and her little spawn. A fucking '_I'm sorry_' and it's all peachy fine? You ditched me, left me in the dead of the night - over one stupid comment. One."

She grows paler in the stark sunlight.

"It's different."

"Yeah it's different alright."

Admittedly, it is a whole lot different and he has no right to be angry at her. Thinking that maybe if he makes her feel a little guilty, maybe she'll let him off easier. No, that's not it. He hasn't got a plan. As always with her, the plotting, conniving Sawyer goes out the window, and instead he acts on heart and instincts. Nothing else.

"What's this _James_?" Her hair flops around her face, tight matted corkscrew curls. He aches at the sight. She looks small and desperate and he hates that he's the cause of is. "What happened there... back at the clinic? What do you _want_?"

_You._ Wants for her to accept the ugliness that is him, to let him take care of her. Take me. _Take me._

When he doesn't answer immediately, she sets off. And he can do nothing but fall in line. Totters along behind her like a nervous tourist will hang on the heels of his Sherpa up the steep slopes of Mount Everest. Wondering why he didn't just go to Disneyland. He'll freeze soon enough.

"It ain't about what I want."

"Bullshit, Sawyer." Tosses her hair back, making headway along the hotel garden as if she knows exactly where he's staying. She must be pretty darn sure he's nagged Hugo into putting him up in one of the pool suites. Thinks she knows him so fucking well.

"I want carte blanche," he hollers after her. That actually makes her stop in her tracks. Watches her turn around to look at him, as if she's stepped in dog crap and dragged it behind her.

"A _what_ now?" Snorting though her nose, a wet unattractive sound. She stands there like Eve in the garden of Eden. Enormous waist high leafs on both sides of the stone paved walkway.

"Carte blanche Darling. I want you to give me a fucking carte blanche."

_I'm the one, just take me._ That's a load of baloney. He's the one who'll crush her, grind her to pieces. He'll destroy her and Jack was right, he should have left her alone, ought to have backed away a long time ago, preferably four years ago. He's going to grovel and plead to Jack; _take care of her Doc._ Do what he can't. Make sure she's alright.

"Seriously? You got to be kidding." Brows drawn taut above her nose. And this is dumb, he knows it. Still, he needs to extract the right words from her. So that later, he can hold them up as useless evidence in his defence.

"You heard me baby girl. I want a carte blanche." He scans the garden, trying to be discrete about it, eyes moving without turning his head. They really ought to get inside. And he wants her in his room before Jack, Henry or someone spots them. It would be too late for explanations. _Not yet_. He can't have her find out yet. He's the one who has to tell her, or she'll never trust him again.

"Sorry to burst your bubble Buddy, but there's no secret stash of guns or sun screen. I've got nothing worth taking."

Oh, but she does. She's got plenty, owns everything that he wants. _Everything_.

"I want what I want, ain't no way around it." Waits for her to ask what she'll get in return. She'll run a hard bargain. She always does. Heartbreak, that's what she'll get from him.

"What's it for James?" _No._ Different type of question. She's not bartering.

"Forgiveness." It drops out of his mouth like an insult. She peers at him as if he's asked her to sign over her kidney. _Forgiveness. _Such a pompous, pretentious word. An outrageous request.

"I don't understand what you're - "

"Forgiveness for anything I want and you'll grant it girl. Just like _that_. Just like you just did with Twiddlytoes back there." Pretends to have the upper hand, plays the alpha male so that she won't suspect that he's falling apart. Puts on an exaggerated swagger as he approaches her. Makes himself broad and confident, pushing a path through the monster leaves, as if he's got something to offer her in exchange.

"You've lost it. I'm... I don't - "

"Fair and square. Valid one time." Nothing fair about it. Drives his hand out towards her, and to his surprise she takes it. Gingerly, as if it's a rat-trap about to clamp shut across her knuckles.

"Alright, as you wish, you can have your stupid carte blanche. Valid _one _time only."

"See, that wadn't all that hard."

"Maybe you could stop being an ass for two seconds and tell me why you'd need it... Or would _that_ be too hard for you?"

Stroppy girl. This is when he loves her the most. Won't let him get the upper hand. Will wrestle and twist and try to gain an advantage. Always. They're just the same.

She swivels around and marches across the landscaped hotel garden. He's already hurt her, though he's not quite sure when, what exact words got to her. They're always like this, like careless children wielding sharpened weapons. Baffled when they draw blood.

"Hey," he calls after her. "You don't even know my room number."

She stops, mouth twitching as if she might cry and he regrets it. Wants to take back every second that has passed since they left that clinic. Should have done it all differently. Should have pulled an arm around her, held her close – all the time. Shouldn't have let a moment slip by when she couldn't feel how much he wants this.

"Who said I was going to _your_ room?"

A huge sense of remorse as he trails her, watching her legs moving like drumsticks, stained up to her knees with red mud. And if he wasn't so fucking miserable he'd let her know. The baby. Doesn't regret it. Loves the thought of something of him growing, alive in her. He hurries to catch up with her. Walking right behind her. Maybe there is still time. _Maybe there is a way._

"Well you are. Ain't going back to the ship. Ain't safe yet so you're coming right here with me. To my room."

_That's a lie._ It's probably as safe as staying in open sight at the Empire and a hell of a lot safer than prancing around the garden pressing silly promises out of her. Better get her inside. Now. The white noise in his head deafening, still desperately searching for a lifeline. Hoping to come up with another solution. Like running through the same formula over and over again, refusing to believe in a result you already know is correct.

"Good."

_Good, huh? _The odd communication between them, and he'd need an interpreter if it wasn't for the fact that he already knows. _She wants him_. Different now. Brave and bone-certain, like never before. And why couldn't it have happened earlier, when there was still time?

Why fucking now?

Damn Hurley, damn him for dying on them. Though none of this is his fault and they shouldn't have been relying on his charity to make a living in the first place. So many things he shouldn't. Should have left her alone, shouldn't have slept with her that morning. Shouldn't have made promises he won't be able to keep.

_Tell her now_, he thinks as he rounds her on the narrow stone path, brushing his arm against her. Walks on ahead, towards his suite down by the pool area.

_Soon._

She catches up with him near the door. He fumbles, searching his pockets, can't remember where he put the key. But it's not even locked. No need to lock things in Hurley's little piece of paradise. He boots the door open, waits for her to go ahead. The bed, the first thing falling into his field of vision. Stands there, all soft and inviting, begging to have the two of them fall down onto it. Come closer.

Come on, _use me._

Tempting him, flaunting a white comforter and half a dozen pillows. A long, narrow swathe of bronze silk instead of a bedspread. He'd sweep that crap straight off. Lie her down, right in the middle. Let her sink her head into one of those plump pillows. He'd do all the work. Let her lie there, arms thrown above her head and do absolutely nothing but unwind that beautiful body. He'd coax sounds out of her that would make her flush fuchsia pink all over.

She angles her face up towards him. A little shy smile, looking at him from beneath those crazy eyelashes. And he just knows she's thinking the exact same thing. Jayzus. Her come-hither look;_ 'take me or I'll devour you.'_ All stripped of make-up and grubby and he wants her.

He has to tell her. Sit her down, take her through it. Needs some space between them for the oxygen to start flowing to his brain again. It's blocking up quickly, making the pulse pound a steady, _now, now, now. _Now. Sex like balm in those wounds he has yet to inflict. Skin and sweat and kisses. No. Betrayal is still betrayal.

"Hey… Lemme' order us up some coffee," he says and moves on past her. This thing he has for her. A huge part is just plain puppy love. But if that's the case, why the hell could he never get over her? Those years with Juliet, it ought to have been enough. It's fucking impossible to get a grip on and in any case, it doesn't matter any more.

...

He's not in one of the normal rooms. It's the poolside suite of course because Hurley doesn't skimp on the comforts for his friends. Or maybe because Henry couldn't say _no_. Imagines Sawyer bullying him into assigning him the nicest place of the whole hotel. Just like him. The manipulating son of a bitch.

He snatches the bag of meds from her, dropping it on the bed. Offhanded, scanning the room as if he's never set is foot there in his life. The windows are enormous, reaching from ceiling to polished hardwood floors offering a grand view over the garden and the infinity pool.

He hurries over to tug the curtains closed, shielding them from the eyes of by-passers. It makes her jittery and vaguely excited. He doesn't want anyone peeping in. He stalks around, making sure all windows are properly covered. His buttocks moving beneath denim, his back bulky and solid under his shirt. That nervous way of swiping his hair back from his face. Alternates it with wiping his mouth. Those beautiful hands, edgy and uneasy.

He grabs an apple from the fruit bowl on the coffee table and tosses it to her.

"Ya' hungry?" His head held low, and he looks both guilty and hurt. Studying her through strands of dirty blond hair with an inflamed intensity. His jaws tense, as if he's trying to crush stones between his molars. _He has bad news_, she thinks. He's biting something back. Something he's too scared to say to her. What's the hell is that carte blanche for?

"Yeah... a little." She just stands there, trying to take in the fancy surroundings. Not her world. And it's all very impressive, but all she can see, all she can think of, is how the bed takes centre stage. The sheets a stark white, and she wants to see it in contrast with his skin. Caramel on white. Wants to tackle him when he passes it. Sink down there with him, fight to get each other's clothes off. Imagines he might speak then. Might bring his guard down enough to let her in. The puzzling role reversal.

Instead she takes a big old bite out of her apple. The juices spraying her chin as her teeth pierce its red skin. Feeling a little like Eve taking the fruit from the serpent. But Adam isn't watching, not really present. He paces around, finds the remote to the flat screen TV and dumps his ass on the couch. Flicking through the channels as if he's some lazy husband, just back home from work. Puts his feet up on the coffee table and jerks his chin towards a closed door, eyes fastened on the screen. Not on her.

"You better take a shower girl. Smells like skunk in here." Cagey, posing on the couch, pretending to be relaxed. "Towels are on the rack."

Wants to shake him. Wants him to talk to her, tell her what is wrong. Earlier at the clinic, she could have sworn they were on to something. '_Take me. Just take me.'_

"Alright." He had been almost happy back there at the clinic. She saw him in that examination room, the sheer relief. That wasn't a lie. It can't have been.

"Don't use up all the hot water Peanut." A clumsy attempt at playing casual, pretending cool and unmoved. She doesn't buy it.

"Catch!"

She lobs the half eaten apple his way. And he fumbles with it, dropping it on the floor. His mind elsewhere. She needs a reaction. Or maybe she just needs him to look at her. She draws the hem of her sundress up, wrenching it over her head. Lets it drop to the floor. That's when he finally seems to notice. Rips his eyes off the TV, and follows the trail, from dress on the floor, waistband to face, hitching on her chest and belly. She's self conscious of how her body is filling out like a dough trying to escape a pot. Her stomach, an unflattering beer paunch spilling out through the open flies of her jeans. But she needs him to see her. Provoke some kind of reaction. Any will do.

Tucks his upper lip in between his teeth. Nostrils flaring as if he's about to have a hissy fit.

The way he catapults himself out of his seat and across the floor. Aiming at her. She thinks; _now_. Now he'll take her. Now he'll talk. _Come on then, just follow through,_ she wants to say. If he's going to hurt her, she'd rather not wait all day for it.

But instead he snatches the dress off the floor, grabs her by her naked waist, one hand at the small of her back, the other slipping down her hip, shoving her inside the bathroom.

"Just undress in there." Tone short and clipped, the normal Southern lull strangely absent. And the whole interaction, it's like he's someone else. Not Sawyer, no crocodile grin, no naughty hands or wicked advances. Nothing. He just pushes the door closed, avoiding all eye-contact. Leaving her there, stumped.

The rejection etches the suspicion deeper. He won't come to Manado. Won't come anywhere. And what's worse, she hasn't even had the guts to ask him yet. Hasn't even had a chance to fight for him. Wants to be brave, wants an opportunity to put all her cards on the table. She has nothing to lose, and something about that seems so final. His obvious discomfort is infectious, making her nervous too.

She sheds the rest of her clothes in a pile on the floor. The nausea shouldn't come as a surprise to her, but it does. As if out of nowhere. She has just enough time to bend over the toilet bowl. It ought to have calmed down by now, she's well into her second trimester. Any day, the doctor had said and she hasn't thrown up quite as much the last few days. But maybe that has more to do with being on dry land than the morning sickness being over. Almost eighteen weeks, a few more days. The deadline looming over her like a death sentence. That's when she'd lost the last one. If she can only make it past that, she'll be okay. She'll start believing in it.

Turns the faucet on in the shower, catching a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror across on the opposite wall. She looks a fright. Dirty, pale cheeks and a little podgy body, having transformed so much she hardly recognizes it. She covers her stomach with her hands, using the soap as a pretext to touch, to do her own version of expectant mother. More terrified than smug, the way she draws her palms over the outwards curve where her skin is being stretched in a little dome. It was alive this morning, just a few hours ago. Chances are, it still is. There are no guarantees. She's alone with this, might as well accept it.

Leans her forehead against the cool tile, the stream hitting her back. Lets the tears come, lets them drown in the water, evidence washed away in the drain. Crying silently and it doesn't help the least. Never did. _Toughen up_, she thinks. Has to fight. Shuts the water off, wiping her face roughly. _No more crying._ Whatever this is, no matter what will happen next. Enough of being a coward. Won't be that Kate anymore.

He's right on one account. She must smell like death reheated because once she gets out of the shower wrapped in a thick white terrycloth towel, she can't for the life of her picture stepping into those stinking rags again. Opens the door, just a crack, peeking through. Finds him sitting on the bed, facing the bathroom door instead of the TV, dumbly holding the remote towards it. Waiting for her.

"James... got some clothes I can borrow?"

Expecting, no, _hoping_ for a suggestive comment. Hoping he'll erase that sense of a catastrophe waiting around the next corner. Tell her she doesn't need to wear anything.

"Sure thing. Hold on, I'll see what I can dig up."

Two seconds later, he opens the door just enough to chuck in a bundle of sleeves and denim and all she sees is his large tanned hand before he closes it again. Softly.

She pulls a white cotton shirt from the pile, and in a mindless reflex, presses it against her nose to smell it. _Him_. But it smells of detergent, just clean and impersonal. Extracts a pair of his dark blue boxers. Finds that he's thrown her his other pair of jeans. Washed and worn into the softest moleskin texture. Yanks them up over her buttocks, finding them way too large. She has to hold them up with one hand so they won't glide right off her hips. The stingy son of a bitch couldn't part with his belt. She barges out of that bathroom holding onto that waistband for dear life.

...

He can hear her in the shower, water splashing against floor and walls. Doesn't take much to conjure up the vision of her in there. Sleek and glossy. All pink skin and supple curves, under the stream of water. Rivers of it washing over her breasts, trickling down the tips. Different now, swollen and beautiful. Her thighs, her hips, everything softer, sweeter. Like the smoothest marzipan, and just the thought is enough to make him want to sink his teeth into her. He's a goddamn disgrace. He must quit stalling, must tell her now.

He could go in there.

_He could_, but instead he calls room service. Wants to feed her. Orders Cognac, coffee and enough grub to feed a goddamn army. The Cognac is for him, to calm the jitters, but all the other things are stuff he imagines are good for her and the squid. Fruit and crap. God only knows what they've been feeding her the last few days. It sure as hell can't have been Blinis and Caviar.

The clock is ticking away, getting louder and louder. Do the right thing. Do it already. But _fuck it_, he doesn't want to_. _Just wants to be with her, one last time. Waits for her to come out again, smelling like a little budding flower. Hopes she won't put the clothes on. Just come swishing out in a towel and a smile. How it could have been, if he weren't cursed. If Hugo were still alive. He would stand up as soon that handle was pulled down. Would meet her, chest to chest. Four, maybe five steps backwards and he'd pull her down onto the bed with him, would fall backwards with her on top. And he'd enjoy that body like whipped cream and raspberry sauce. He'd lick her up and down, make her vibrate like a violin cello played on its darkest, deepest notes.

And that's just daydreams.

The '_want'_ and the '_must'_ battling within, tearing him in all directions. Oh shit_. Just come on out now._ His jeans tight around the crotch one second and his collar strangling his throat the next. What the hell is he even doing here with her? Has to tell her and take her to the boat. She'll want to see them all. She'll need to see them to believe. But it isn't the kind of news you give someone on an empty stomach. They'll eat a little and then he'll tell her.

_Make love._ And then he'll tell her.

Hell, she sure is taking her time in that shower. It occurs to him that she might not be eager to rejoin him out here, seeing as how he's being a total ass. But he doesn't know how else to be. All options shutting down on him.

He watches the TV unseeingly, until he realizes that he's got a local news channel on. Something about a major drug-bust. _Narkoba_, they say. Can only be one thing. Piles and piles of brown packages. A bunch of Westerners being lead away, flashing to a mug shot of Pieter and that's when he sits up and pays attention. _Hell._ How could they link the two together?

The scene is cut to the footage of a young woman, glossy straight black hair and silky grey dress being herded by a plain clothed detective. Dewi_. Christ_. At least she's not dead and buried by that mafia gang she's hanging with. She walks coolly and straight-backed away from the camera. Maybe he's at least succeeded with that part of keeping her safe.

He listens intently for her name, any of her many names. Waits, baited breath for her own haunting mug-shot to invade his television screen. The one where she really does look like Bambi with the barrel of a gun pressed to her temple. But it doesn't come.

He pours himself a tumbler full to the rim with the golden Cognac. The liquid, rich and oily. Downs the entire glass in one go and without really thinking about it, moves so that he is sitting on the bed, all attention on that bathroom door. _Hell_, it doesn't matter in the end, whether he's orchestrated the most brilliant deflective plan in the history of mankind. It just doesn't matter. All that matters is this. That he can't offer her a decent future. Can promise her absolutely nothing. _Nada._

She won't understand.

There is no way she'll take a dime from him if she knows where it's coming from. Jack better agree to help pass on the money to her. Though there is really no reason why he would. He doesn't need Sawyer's pathetic little earnings to support her. He can do that all by his lonesome, hot shot surgeon and all. He might very well decide to stay, put up shop in Indonesia and raise Sawyer's poor bastard as his own to boot. He's the good guy. He'll do the right thing. But fuck that old jealousy, fuck the envy making his stomach turn. The only thing important now, is she and the goddamn kid. All that matters is to keep them safe. He's got about enough to set her up somewhere. In Jakarta maybe, a place where she can blend in. Disappear. Has no clue how he'll accomplish that but he can't have her scamming and grifting on the street, doing small stuff, yielding little profit. Can't have her risking exposure, getting caught. He won't be there to protect her. Or the kid.

Has to keep her afloat for a while. The big projects can't be rushed, or half-assed or they'll fall apart. They require meticulous planning and implementation, an extensive investment of time and bullshit. She might have already given birth by the time he pulls a profit.

Briefly considers just robbing a bank. Because truth is – he is not sure he's that man anymore. The cold hearted bastard who cared for no one. Wants only _her._ Homely, pathetic aspirations, a banal constitution of man, woman and child. It's so near, he can almost smell it – the powdery vanilla of their little family. Her and him and something theirs. Fuck, it could be beautiful.

_Marry me. _Hah. That would be a joke of magnificently bad taste.

And there she is, standing in that door with his shirt, buttoned carelessly, looking lost. Her hair wet, hanging loosely around her face, dripping down her front. Making the fabric seem transparent, slick against her skin over the shoulders. Her cheek taut and expression a little like a prisoner on her way to her execution.

"Thought you might have been washed down the drain." Her skin is still glossy around the base of her throat. The scatter of freckles, familiar and untouchable at the same time.

_She won't want to see him again._

He counts down from the collar. The first two buttons open, the next two closed and the rest left unbuttoned. As if she's not planning on wearing that shirt for long. Half hopes she might throw herself at him there on the bed. But he knows she won't. Not when he's being such a cold-hearted asshole. Instead of sitting there hoping for something that ought not to happen, he gets up and sidesteps her. Dumping himself down onto the couch before she reaches there.

"You couldn't have lent me your belt..." she grumbles.

His jeans, ridiculously big on her. She's folded the legs up a few times, a tense grip on the waist as she makes her way to the couch. Her breasts moving under the shirt, no bra. It must lie discarded on the bathroom floor.

"Come on Freckles, let's eat. Ordered up room service." Gestures at the coffee table, decked to the brink of madness with food.

"No kidding." Wet bare feet she hasn't bothered drying, leaving water on the hardwood floor.

He allows himself another swift side-glance at, her nipples showing through the thin white fabric. Returns to pretending to watch the TV. Thinking that soon she'll belong to that little freak in there. And the idea of her suckling a babe, _his _goddamn babe - thrills him on a completely unexpected level. Makes losing her that much harder.

She carefully avoids knocking into his knees as she squeezes by, facing him. Eyes like hard black lava stones, the green overcome by a cagey watchfulness. An accusation already budding deep down. Obstinate now, he sees fight in her. Straight backed and tight lipped, as if she prepares herself for battle. And he wants to pull her down across his lap, make her straddle him. Dissolve that thirst for conflict into something else. Put his lips around those dark little patches, and taste her through the cotton shirt. Be stupid and impractical and unreasonable.

Hope is a cruel beast. Keeps pressing its wet, cute nose against him. Gazing up at him with its puppy eyes. _Maybe_, it whispers_. Maybe you could try, make a go of it_. Find a job here. Never, ever leave her. _H_ope is a vicious sonofabitch. Has to be kicked to the curb. It won't work. Beyond his desire to bury his head in the sand he knows it wouldn't work. They'll have to have enough for drugs, tickets, housing, medical bills, birthing stuff. Never mind bribes and forgery for her papers. All of that, and he still has Cassidy's kid to take care of. Can't support one and not the other. What kind of man would he be then?

...

She sits down next to him. Notices how he eyes her breasts, furtively. Only to look away and pour himself a generous drink from a liquor bottle. Hands unsteady as if he's been out boozing all night, like an old alcoholic in withdrawal. He nods at the table in way of an invite.

"Dig in girl."

"I see you're taking this whole breakfast thing to a new level." He grunts and ignores her. Busying himself with cutting a grapefruit in two. Pouring a truckload of sugar on it and carving out a large piece. Shoves it in his mouth.

"Tastes like bile." A spoon in one hand and the grapefruit in the other, scrutinizing it as if he's wondering who the hell put it there.

"So if you wanted bacon, why didn't you order some?"

"I didn't order all of this crap for me." Throws the spoon down on the table, ceremoniously dumping the half eaten grapefruit back on a saucer, eying it as if it has offended him deeply. His face closed off, uninviting. There are no dimples, no sensual grins making her dizzy today. He has closed shop.

She pours herself a glass of orange juice and surveys the offerings on the table. Seems pretty obvious he's ordered the things he thinks she might like. There is toast, marmalades and even those little Balinese pancakes with palm sugar, bananas and coconut shavings. He knows she's got a sweet tooth.

She offers him her orange juice but he just shakes his head, running his tongue across his upper teeth, presumably to eliminate all traces of the disgusting grapefruit. He looks dog tired, little wrinkles around the eyes clearly hair is in serious need of a wash and his beard is too long to be allowed to be called stubble. Still - _he's beautiful._

So beautiful it hurts to look at him.

He bends his neck, slurping at his coffee. The nape where dark blond hair meets smooth honey colored skin. The luxurious slope of it, she wants to take a ride down there, find her way beneath the collar of his shirt. Knows how it feels to run her hands over his back. How muscles bulge, dip and climb, the prefect combination of smoothness and strength.

Wants to touch. But instead she leans forward and seizes the cup out off his hands. Takes a big old gulp of coffee before she slams it down on the table, brown liquid splashing over the sides of the cup.

"Hey! I was drinking that. "Staring at her incredulously. They are like two kids, the indignity of not being able to behave like adults. And they were almost there, they were so close to getting through. She had felt it, there at the clinic, the things he'd said.

Almost there. But she won't let him dodge her. She won't back down this time.

"I don't understand. What's going on?"

"We're having breakfast." Artful performance portraying a suitably blasé man, chin pushed forward, pouring himself yet another glass of Cognac. For all her insecurities, for all the doubts in the past, she doesn't believe this act. The indifference. She knows he cares about her.

"We're not just '_having breakfast'_."

Acts as if he hasn't heard her and she sinks back into the soft cushions behind her, shutting her eyes for a short moment. Until she feels him stirring, reaching for the remote. Picking it up from the couch between them, accidentally drawing the back of his hand along the side of her thigh. Barely feels it through the denim but it's enough. A tingle rising from there that he doesn't seem aware of. He sips at his Cognac and just raises the volume. A music channel, a local version of MTV perhaps, some loud crap blaring out of the sound system. Picks a piece of pancake with his fingers. Putting it all in, pushing it. Chewing fast and furiously.

_He's scared._

Her imagination running away with her. All the ways he could break her heart.

She gets up, demonstratively stomping over to the TV, switching it off by bending down to pull the plug. Doesn't know how to make him talk.

"What's up your bonnet?" he mutters but only seems mildly bothered. She returns, drops down next to him. Swipes another drink from his coffee, banging it so hard against the table it's a wonder the cup doesn't crumble. Eyes glued to his face.

"What's up yours?"

And for the briefest flicker of time, his face changes, open and vulnerable. Eyes searching hers, lips moving mutely. Like a little boy who's lost his mother at the supermarket. Or just like a little boy who's lost his mother. And then it's gone again, in a blink of an eye. And she is left with the steely, grumpy man, a horizontal line and two vertical ones etched between his eyebrows.

The dead air between them. Something flighty, a secret there that she can't get a handle on. But she knows - he is frightened. He's a jumble of tangled nerves.

"I never asked you to do this. Any of it." His lip twitching, a nervous stroke over the bridge of his nose with an index finger. Letting his hair fall across his face. "What's happening James?"

He can't even look at her.

His silence is answer enough. _Eat. Shut up._ She takes in the sight of all the food he's ordered for her. Food that they aren't eating. He sweeps his drink and shoves his shirt sleeves up above his elbows. Pushes a plate of toast and tiny glass jars of jam in her direction. Startled when he slides his palm across the back of her hand. Enveloping it like a large warm casing, firm and persuasive. Wraps her fingers around the little butter knife. Bizarre. It's like being at a tea party with the Mad Hatter. _No_. It's like being at the Mad Hatter's funeral wake.

As if they're in mourning. Something is dead.

_Won't cry_. Her little passenger is alive. It's alive, that's enough of a miracle today. Can't have everything. So she concentrates on spreading a thick layer of strawberry jam on her toast. Trying to think of her next move. Some way to get to him. Puts so much jam on, it overflows, drips down her fingers and she has to balance the toast in one hand while licking the other clean.

"You eat like a goddamn hog." He snatches up the toast from her and dumps it on the small plate. Wipes her hand off with a linen napkin. "You want me to put it all on the floor so you can just wolf it up?"

"Harhar, very funny."

Briskly cleaning her fingers, one by one, drawing the cloth up and down each one. Meticulously. Something stirring about it, mimicking another kind of movement. Eyes downcast, both of them just staring at their hands, what he's doing to her.

"What did you do James? What did you do that is so terrible that you need a carte blanche?"

The injury on his forehead clearly on display where his hair parts. The way it hangs down like a shaggy curtain to just beneath his jaw. Peers through it at her, a look that prickles her skin. Makes her squirm.

"Why not me, Kate?" He takes her by surprise, that tone, jagged and hurt. Lifts her hand to his mouth, a silly chivalrous gesture, turning her palm up. Lips in an ambiguous caress there, maybe it's a kiss. Whatever it is, it unhinges her.

"Why not you _'what'_?"

"Why everyone else and not me, Freckles?" he mumbles and the words hardly register. All senses concentrated on the feeling of his nose pressed into her hand. His eyelids are half closed, the warm humidity of his mouth there, breathing in and out.

"I don't understand..." Tries to pull her hand out of his but he clamps down on it. Hard. Thumb pressing against the sinews on top of it still not looking at her. He turns in his seat so that their knees knock into each other.

"You let every Tom, Dick and Harry take care of you... But not me."

And only Sawyer. Only this man could turn up the heat by slipping the tip of her thumb into his mouth, his tongue in a slow swirl around it. Pretending to lick the marmalade away. Only this man can turn the most ordinary things into a sensual experience. It scares her and it thrills her. Always has. Reminds her of who he is, what he has done and makes her feel inadequate in comparison.

"That's not true."

"Let's look at the evidence shall we, Sweetheart? Hurley bailing you out, providing your entire livelihood, _no biggie_. Just thank you and no agonizing issues with that." Inhales as if readying himself for another thorny harangue. Pauses to press a keen kiss at the centre of her palm. And it almost hurts, she's so attuned to what he does. It burns like a stigmata. "I bet you let Jack take care of you too, back then..."

_Ouch._ A punch below the belt, bringing Jack into it.

"And you sure don't mind Ni Luh babying you, or all those other folks we met on the road. So why the hell not _me_?"

"You're taking care of me right now."

He shuts his eyelids completely. Exasperated, blowing air through his nostrils, and she tries to curve her fingers over his mouth, in way of a caress. He won't let her. Moves over to her index finger. Same thing there, suction a little more acute. Tongue like a cat's, warm and rough. The fine lines across his eyelids, the sublime beauty of his eyelashes up close, against the coarse tan skin.

"I ain't talking about wiping your sticky little fingers and you know it." Opens his eyes, squinting at her. The crows' feet, wants to smoothen them out with her lips. He looks older. As if he's aged ten years since this morning.

He takes a little leisurely swipe with his tongue up between her thumb and index finger, lingering there, something almost obscene about it, how he fixes his eyes on her. Or maybe that's all in her mind, something about how he would do that. _Down there_.

"It's not the same. With you." Wishes she could explain. How he has the power to break her because of who he is. The balance between them, it's always been based on the notion, false as it may be, that they are equals. Not the same, but equals.

His thumb moving inside her hand and she is ready to unfurl. Wants to push herself against him. Undress him here on the coach, feel him enter her, solid and slick, fill her up. Alert to how her thighs press together at the thought.

But next thing she knows, he lets go of her hand, dropping it in her lap.

"No, it _ain't_ the same. Ain't the same at all." Darts up and plugs in the TV cable again. Puzzlingly male, saying half a thing, thinking the rest. Doesn't know what it means. Some macho way of saying he'd provide for her if she'd only let him. Giving her a little taste of what she's missing in the meantime. Forgets sometimes how calculating and conniving he can be.

And though it is all unstructured and the twists and turns are making her dizzy, she is convinced there is some kind of plan to this. Some kind of strategy to achieve what he wants. Only, she has no idea what it is. He can have her, he already knows that. It takes a lot less than elaborate finger licking and feeding her a banquet.

She wants to tell him. What exactly, she doesn't know yet. Has something raw, something yet to be formulated. Something about love, not being worth the risk but that she can't do it any other way. That maybe, perhaps the pain she knows waits for her on the others side somewhere, inevitable as it is – might be worth it. Worth him. She's not certain of anything now. Just that she can't lose him. Wants to tell him about the little house on Manado, the illusion so real she can almost touch it. How he ought to be there too, ought to lie behind her on a bed, arm slung over her hip. Someone, that little hope of hers taking shape, becoming somebody sleeping in her arms. Not two people in her house. _Three._

She studies him. _Give me a sign_, she thinks. Doesn't understand the first thing about him. The _forgive-me_ carte blanche he cajoled out of her earlier. He's planning on using it. Soon. This is the only thing she's certain of.

He picks something up from the dresser. A little green book. He sends it flying across the room and she catches it on pure reflexes.

"Did you know you're Indonesian now by the way?"

"What's this Sawyer?"

"Your passport. Latest edition fugitive identity." Says it snappy, as if she is a nuisance and she guesses she is for him. Must be pretty tired of this, rescuing her, helping her with every little thing. But she didn't ask for it. None of it.

She turns the little plastic book around in her hand. Green with a big eagle on it. _Republic of Indonesia_ in a nice gold lettering. Her picture inside. _And why not?_ Everything else is absurd, unreal, why not this? The name, Katia Subroto.

"Great thing I can barely say two words in Indonesians."

_Where is his?_ But he doesn't pull out a second one, because there isn't one. No matching family name, no promise of a future. No longer linked and pathetic as it is to miss being his fake wife or his stupid infatuated cousin – _she does_.

"Yeah well, hell. You ain't got the luxury of being picky."

"And... who are you now?" Tries to sound casual, as if she doesn't care. What is he now? Is he hers?

"I'm James Ford, like I've always been Freckles." And that answers it better than anything else. No need for him to live under an assumed identity. He's not staying. Not with her. Flicks through the passport and she isn't surprised to find a bunch of hundred dollar bills tucked into the back cover, so many it makes it bulge.

"And this... what's this for?"

"You'll need it. I guess you won't be able to get to that old bank account any longer. New name and all."

_You. _You will need it. _'Just take me'_ – that's what he'd said but there is no 'us', no 'we' anywhere as far as the eye can see.

It had seemed real in the examination room, that moment when their eyes had met. It had felt like a silent agreement. '_You and me, we're alright. We're going to do this.'_ But she must have forgotten, how he can fake it like no other. Can make you believe what he wants. He'd simply done what he had to, in order to get her inside. Had he expected it to be dead? Would he have felt obliged to stay with her if it had been? Or is it a living baby that forces him to play the good guy and stick around. Either way, he looks trapped. Leaving or staying, whichever it is, he isn't happy, that's all she knows.

He passes by the coffee table only to swoop down and snag her discarded strawberry jam toast. Shoves it inside his mouth in its entity, struggling with the impressive mouthful. Stands there chewing away, eyes skittish, chasing around the room. Everywhere but on her.

She turns her head to look for the bag with medicine. Must take her shot, can't sit here and wallow in how she's losing him. Notices how he follows her gaze, still masticating on that piece of toast.

"I'll do it, Princess." Voice gruff and deep in his throat. He saunters over to the bed, his trousers hanging low on his hips. That slightly drunk way of moving sloth-like through a room. Leans down and fishes around in the plastic bag, pretending to know what he's looking for.

The thought strikes her like a pick-axe. _He has done something_. Something so terrible he can't even say it. She should have known, should have understood. It's the natural law of all things worth wanting.

All hopes ever nurtured, must be crushed.

...

He raffles through the plastic. Just a bunch of individually packed syringes, little bottles, alcohol and cotton buds. Wants to explain to her, the words are like dried glue on his tongue, impossible to spit out. An excuse to touch her, but it's more. Wants to do something for her, something concrete, or at least the illusion of helping her keep the little bugger alive. Needs to be part of this. Her and her kid. Even if it'll have to be from a distance, providing nothing but money.

_And maybe his name._

Would she give the poor sod his name at least? Somehow he doubts it. She'll go all out, erase any evidence he ever existed. She'll probably make up some fantastic story about the kid's father. Dead. Yeah, he imagines she'll tell people he is dead because that's what he will be. _To her._

"No, you don't need to. I can do it myself." Unaware of how she proves him right. Never lets him do anything of importance for her.

She snatches the plastic bag away from him, searching frantically through it_. Don't want to hurt you. _Wants to reach out and touch her cheek. That curve, like she's got half an apple stuffed inside it. Childish and heartbreaking. Her hair falling across her face, forward over her shoulders, wet stringy waves snaking down a good bit over her chest. Seems so long ago. One of those sticky Yogyakarta evenings.

She'd been just like that, strutting naked, just fresh out of the shower, hair coiling down over her breasts. One of those nights she'd been a little aggressive, a little rough at the edges. He'd done his best to mellow her down. And then just given up. Had let her do her thing, get it out of her system. Afterwards, the two of them tangled up in sheets and limbs. She'd been snoring away while he'd lain there twirling, twisting strands of her hair between his fingers unable to sleep for the fucking wonder of having her in his arms.

_And it'll never be like that again._

"Well, I'm _gonna'_ so you might as well just give me the gear Darling."

"I can do it myself."

He doesn't doubt it for one second. How she rips the plastic off the syringe with her teeth and plumps herself down on the bed still holding on to the waist of those jeans. Looks like an old heroin addict in need of a fix. Picks up a puny glass bottle from the plastic, lays it on the bed as she reaches to twist the cap off the syringe and he sees his chance. He pounces on the miniature bottle like a hawk on prey. Triumphant when he manages to nab it right before her.

"Sure you can. But I'm - _doing_ – it - Sweetcakes. Just hand over the goodies!"

Same old story. Always the same. He's prepared to take a fight for it, but she only glances up at him, a little surprised, dark shades under her eyes. She passes the syringe to him, just places it in his open palm. And he regrets asking for it the instant the plastic touch his skin.

"Alright, knock yourself out. 'Sides, I have twenty more where that came from." She says, tilting her head towards the plastic bag.

_That's not how they play_, he wants to remind her. They bicker and fight and physically tussle about things. They don't just hand things over without a proper scrap. That's not by the rules. The tension, it requires a scuffle, an actual physical confrontation.

Sitting there, leaning back on her arms. On _his _bed, where she ought to lie, chest heaving, gasping for air right now. Legs spread and him pleasuring her. Instead those legs are crossed primly, one over the other. A bare foot dangling nonchalantly. She has a mean glint to her. Like a cat with a rat's tail hanging out of the corner of her mouth. Has already won this round. She knows he isn't man enough. And frankly, needles just ain't his thing.

He remains standing there like a sheep looking at the syringe and that little toy bottle in his own clumsy hands. Why the hell did he have to try to play the hero? She'll hate him anyway.

Acts tough, pretends it matters none to him. And she makes it darn impossible by shaking her drenched hair back, away from her chest, leaving her shirt translucent over her breast. Two large see-through she did that on purpose, the way she sits straight-backed as if she's aware of how fucking edible she looks.

"You mind telling me how I'm supposed to do this, or I'll just jam the needle in your ass. Your call."

Stares himself blind on the tips of her breasts beckoning him through the white cotton. The way they peek through shyly as if gathering courage to come out and play. Aching to taste her. Soap, fear and squeaky clean skin.

She pushes the hem of the shirt up, holding it across her diaphragm. The white fabric framing the soft hill of her belly perfectly. Instantly wants to run his hands across it. Because it's her and it's _hers_. Freakish to think that there is a quasi person in there, swimming around like a little happy fish, doing flips and somersaults and whatnots. And it's alive. It probably wouldn't appreciate him getting all hot and bothered around its mother but honestly, he has no control over that.

"It goes in the stomach." She says in her _Miss-know-it-all voice_, that little sinister smirk she's got. _Uhu, no_. He isn't about to plunge a goddamn needle into that thing. Hell no. She just sits there, cool as a cucumber, waiting him out. Probably thinks he'll faint or something. He can do this. Hell, he's dug a bullet out of his own shoulder with his finger nails, surely he can stab her with a teeny little needle.

"Alright then, lets get cracking. "

Hesitates, has no idea how to actually go from holding this damn thing to pushing it through her skin. When he fails to act fast enough, she holds out one hand for him to return the syringe and the bottle, while the other still hitches up the hem of the shirt. His shirt, over his woman, and his child in that swollen belly. A shaky concept.

He finds it hard to believe.

"Just give it back. I'll do it myself." She makes a sudden attack for the needle but he sweeps it up and away, holding it straight above his head as if this is just a schoolyard tussle. He manages to clasp his other hand around her wrist. "It might help if you actually filled the syringe with the drug."

"Let – me – _fucking_ – do – something for you." Her pulse beneath his fingers, presses harder. Needs to feel the little _'tick-tick-tick'_ of her heart. "Just trust me, for once."

_Trust me._ The ugliest words in the English language. Usually meaning the opposite. Causing a shrieking ear-piercing alarm to go off in him. But again, she just backs off. Looks at him surprised and lets her hands fall down into her lap.

"Okay, knock yourself out."

He moves closer, making her uncross her legs by nudging at them with his knee. Imagines a little canyon of yearning between them, but hell, injections and needles and a fucking baby ought to be enough to keep the lust at bay for a little while. If not, could always tell her about their best friend, blown into a million pieces.

He kneels between her legs, resting his elbows on her thighs. It strikes him that he should have followed Jack's lead, made some grand old romantic gesture. Could have proposed to her way back then, when they first left Bali. Those cheap fake rings. How they'd changed the way they had looked at each other. Still has his, tucked into a sock at the bottom of his duffel bag.

She helps him fill the syringe, tips of her fingers sliding by his as she passes it to him. Eyes meeting, a connection so frail, so delicate you could bounce fairies on it. Bizarrely intimate, something electrifying in the air between them. Ought to be nothing sensual about it.

But it is.

Her belly, exposed and a little cheeky under his eyes, like a molehill. He wants to stick his nose near, draw his cheek against her skin, kiss the rounded curve of it. Hates that stupid ultrasound machine for what it's done to him. Turned him from comfortable indifference to unbearable affection. From dud to daddy.

Tries to concentrate when she shows him, demonstrates it, _'like this'_. Just a nod, '_go ahead._' He tries not to let it get to him, the fear of hurting her. His knuckles accidentally brushing by the underside of her breasts making them wobble. And he thinks that afterwards, when this is done he'll either take her on this bed. Or he'll finally tell her. Cut his suffering short.

Grabs a bit of skin between his fingers like she's shown him, trying to keep from shaking. His other hand flat against the warmth beneath, thumb on the waistband of the boxers. The jeans barely hanging on her hips when she sits down like this. Like some little punk-assed rapper. Plunges the needle in. Hates having to break the surface of that little patch of flawless skin. And she doesn't even flinch. _No._ His girl smiles at him, wrinkles up her hole face in a sweet mellow smile as if he's just gone down on her. Not stuck a damn needle in her belly and injected some funky concoction.

"There, all done. Now that wadn't anything to whine about was it now Peaches?"

"Not bad for a beginner." A voice stroking his ego like a hundred butterfly kisses. He pulls his shoulders back, looks up at her with dry mouth. All delicious in his enormous white shirt_._Tells himself that syringes and sex don't mix. Needles and lust just don't go well together. But there is just such an irresistible amount of naked skin under that shirt, so much to fill his hands with. Too much to savour before she starts hating him.

"I'm a man of many talents." Draws a little alcohol wipe across the puncture wound, wants to show her some of those talents right now. His other hand rounding her belly, underneath it, pretends he has to support himself while cleaning up the already clean spot. This new landscape of hers, with the unexplored topography. Wants to travel her. Make a map of her with his hands.

"Ni Luh said you're are planning to sell the boat and set up something in Manado. That true?" Like being dunked into a tub of ice water.

_No honey_, that's fairytales and spun sugar dreams. As worthless as the crouching by her feet. But he can't say it. _Just can't._

"Sawyer…" Looks at him with those Bambi eyes and he melts like wax, just droops there on the floor. "I want you there."

"Where?" Fingertips encircling her belly button. The zenit of that little gentle mountain. Plays dumb, tries to buy time. Puzzling to find her braver than him, daring to say what needs to be said. She wasn't always like this. Doesn't understand when it happened. When her fear vanished and his own grew out of proportion.

"In Manado. In that house." Blurted out as if it's burning a hole on her tongue. And her courage blows him away. Now, when it's too late. So before she starts asking questions about the future, about a little sweet place to call home, where they can screw their brains out and live happily ever after - he shakes his head. _No._

Slumps his forehead against her abdomen. Presses his lips to the skin there, just where the sphere becomes convex. A geometric wonder. Feels her fingers on his neck, sweeping his hair away. The absolute symmetry of it, and he must say it. The bedlam in his head getting louder. _Tell her, tell her!_

"I'd only throw dirty socks on the floor and leave the toilet seat up… you know it Kate."

The roles have been switched. _Let's play house. Why don't we find out._ And he knows now, they'd be good at it, in their own fucked-up way. They'd be good to each other. They would show that little spud how love can be, hard and soft and boundless.

She knocks his head away, bolts up standing while tucking the shirt back down. Twitches as she smoothes her hands over the white cotton, a blush of humiliation on her face.

She tries to circumvent him, but he clasps hold of her wrist, pulling himself up in the process. Towers over her, swaying like a great big oaf. He has pushed it too far up the hill, it's bound to come rumbling down. They'll both be buried in the rubble.

"Kate..." But she yanks her hand away, firing him a pointed glare before she ducks under his held out arm. Nabs the bag of meds off the bed. "Hell, it ain't as if I don't want to…"

"Forget it, alright."

Fast and furious and he has to say something. Do something. But he is frozen, can't do anything but watch her zip through the room, gathering up her things. The passport, the cash, stuffing it all into the plastic bag. Doesn't even stop to look at him. Hustling by, disappearing into the bathroom. Door slammed deliberately. Comes out in muddy shoes and struggling to put her bra on without taking off the shirt. His shirt.

Her hand on the door handle, still fidgeting with those bra straps when he finally comes to.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going back to the boat. Might have something that actually fits me left in the cabin," she says, her jaw snapping shut like an alligator's snout. A bitter little bite to her tone, as if it's his damn fault she's got buttocks the size of grapefruits and is swimming in his denims.

"Sit your ass down. I'll go get your stuff."

"No. I need to get out of here." Her gaze vacant on the crotch of his jeans and

suddenly she strides towards him as if she is about to maul him down. Holds her hand out, like a big angry wound. The whole girl. Eyes so narrow, you wouldn't be able to tell what colour they are.

"Give me your belt."

He fumbles with the buckle, the stupid metal thing hitching under his hasty fingers. _Hell_, looks like she's about to give him a whopping with it. But her fiery stance fits badly with the eyes. As sad as he's ever seen on her.

"If you're only going to the ship for your clothes, why the hell are you bringing all your crap with you?" He nods at the plastic bag.

"You tell me Sawyer."

She tears the belt from his fingers. Sets off with it swinging by her side, bag in her other hand. Gives the door a hell of a kick on the way out as if it's the sole source of all her sorrows. Tries to get the belt into the loops while half sprinting on the walkway towards the seafront. Pursuing her with, glowing white panic behind his eyes.

_No_. Not that. Not the ship.

Jack, Claire, Miles and the little bub, glaringly empty space next to them. Time slipping away like an oiled eel. _Can't let her. _He'll never see her again.

He runs barefoot after her. Ungainly and out of balance. Divine retribution, he gets that he has no right to her, to a family of his own. All the shitty things he's done. The marriages he has devastated, the child he has abandoned. And that's not even counting the innocent man he has killed. He hasn't even begun to do penance for any of that yet. He gets it, Karma and all that shit too. Reap what you sow. He deserves this. For it all to go to hell.

But one thing he's certain of, stumbling through Hurley's jungle garden, his own little version of the island. The girl, fleeing ahead of him, all limber legs and unexpected courage.

She doesn't.

_..._

_This is so not where this chapter was going to end. But what are you going to do? The rest soon to follow. Thanks so much for still reading and for the incredible patience. I hope you enjoyed this even though it's mostly one long wallow of self-pity for Sawyer. (Hmm, come to think of it, so is the rest of this entire fic.) Lots of love, Java_


	40. Another choice

_Thank you so much for the feedback you all gave! And apologies if the plot is sloppy and unclear. I'm trying my best to tighten it up. So stoked there are still people reading. Honestly, it blows me away, considering that it's been quite a while since the series ended and well, this story has been dragging on for too long. And to those who think this fic won't end well… Hmmm. I can't really say. Just hang in there. I hope you won't feel let down._

_Rated: M for course language and sexual content._

_Disclaimer: Not much is mine._

…

**Another choice**

…

Get to her. _Stop her._

And there she goes, trampling through hibiscus bushes, mowing down paradise flowers. Has no plan, no clever plot, just rushes blindly, hot on her trail like a bird dog after a wild fowl. Moving on instinct.

Branches and twigs swishing by and he's right behind her. Slipping on the uneven slates of stone, his turn to desperately clutch his waistband. But she has no such problems. Graceful, her hair flying behind her, making a spurt for the beach. Curses the odd impulse to let her have his belt.

"Hey, fuck it! Stop running for Christ's sake! I'm an ass... I am a fucking idiot - "

"Yeah? You _think_?" Shouted backwards while fastening the buckle, _his_ buckle beneath her belly.

_Hell no_, she's not setting one little muddy foot on that boat. Snatches at her, tries to catch hold, managing only to snag the back pocket of the jeans. Yanking at them, revealing the top of his ugly old boxers. But she slips right away.

"Would you stop running for fuck's sake?" He lurches forward again. Damn her. Skipping across the garden path like her tail is on fire.

"No!"

They reach the beach beneath the hotel. Tearing past tourists lazing around on sun-beds south of the walkway. Her feet move furiously in the sand as she zips away, parallel to the paving. He is heavy and out of breath. _Fuck it_. There was a time he could have outrun her. But now, pregnant and all, she gets away easily. Damn woman. A flash of how he'd chased her through jungle. That time he'd been after the case. Now he only wants _her_.

"Hey, wait a up before I bust a bone pipe! It ain't _safe _there. The cops just..."

Feeble, crusty excuse. Does nothing but piss her off even more. Spins around so fast there isn't time to stop. Bumps right into her. And the collision turns into a tackle, they go down, felling one another.

"Really Sawyer? _Really_!" Her breath smells of coffee, the snarl making her nose look angular at the tip, upper lip drawn. Something nostalgic about wrestling her down into the sand. Him on top, capturing her wrists above her head while she spits and hisses. "How is the ship any less safe than your hotel room?"

"It just _is_, alright!"

She tries her usual head butt but he's got this down to a T. She worms and writhes, kicks and fights. And he's half aware of their captive audience, people sitting up on their sun beds, craning their necks, enjoying their trite domestic drama on life and death. And he can't explain why he doesn't just release her. Lets what's going to be ruined just be ruined. The situation is already irremediable.

"Hey Miss, are you alright?" A concerned bystander. Looks up at his left where the sandy feet of a guy hang over the edge of a sun bed.

"Yeah she's alright buddy-boy. Buzz off!"

"I was talking to _her. _You okay Miss?"

"Yeah, sure. Just peachy." How they have rubbed off on each other. She even has a hint of his accent. As if his DNA has leaked into her bloodstream.

Unsuccessful in bucking him off, she changes tactics. Pretends to just resign herself, dunking her head back into the sand, cursing him under heated breath. A million little grains in her wet hair. Her cheek covered in tiny white pearls of sand. Looks soft but she has all bristles out, staring at him unflinchingly. That voracious open-eyed glower she has.

"All that horseshit you fed me back at the clinic... Did you mean _any _of it?"

"Every _fucking_ word." A hissy whisper that has her inhaling so fast, it sounds like a hiccup. "I meant all of that crap Kate, and then some."

"Great! That's just great to know, _Sawyer_. Especially since it means absolutely nothing." And how she can't see who he is, doesn't understand after all this time. Wounded by his rejection back at the hotel room. "_'I'm the one, take me!'_ Just fucking take me, that's what you said! It means nothing!"

Shrill and loud, her desperation hot in his face. Her cheeks blossoming frangipani pink.

"Simmer down girl! You want some genius to recognize your loud, pissy ass and haul you off to the slammer?"

"The shot, the food... that's not what you meant by '_taking care'_ of me, is it James?"

Her whole ribcage rising and falling. Blowing air through her nostrils like a little fire spitting dragon. The entire beach gawping at them. A couple of pink tourists on a stroll across the beach have just stopped to watch the spectacle. He turns to growl, scare them off.

"Move along folks, ain't nothing here to see."

One guy in striped Bermuda shorts lingering, his sweaty face gleeful, hoping for some more drama. The two of them, a dysfunctional abnormality on this beach teeming with honey-mooners with their umbrella drinks and their happy humdrum suburban lives waiting for them somewhere.

"Hey! You want popcorn with that, Lardass?" The man moseys off reluctantly and he returns his attention to her.

He blows at her, trying to dislodge the specks of sand clinging to her eyelashes. She looks like she's about to sneeze. Feels her chest fill up with air but nothing happens.

"So, what's this? Is this one of those times when you decide on a whim to quit sponging off Hurley and _'be a man'_? Is that it?"

The amount of sarcasm she crams into '_be a man_' makes his eyes cloud over. A self righteousness he hasn't earned bubbling over. _She remembers_. Of course she remembers, that time back in Yogyakarta. They've already had this argument and that time she won. This time there will only be losers.

"I might be a good-for-nothing piece of shit - but I _am_ a man Freckles." And a man who takes care of his woman, he wants to say but it's just too ridiculous to say out aloud. Instead he follows a more primitive instinct. Lowers his voice, makes it dark and mellow. Something about pressing his hips against hers. The soft swell of breasts against his chest. "Come on, let's get back to the room… let's..."

Strokes the tense sinewy nerves at her wrist. _Forgive me_, he thinks. Needs that carte blanche now. For not being the man she needs, for not being better, stronger or smarter. For not being able to do right by her.

"Cut it out!"

"We'll go back. Sleep on it a little... and then..."

She gasps hard beneath him. Sees her faltering, the insecure dip of the eyelids. How her lips go soft and her legs might part under him, just a little, barely noticeable. It's her body responding automatically, not her mind. But she wants to trust him, he knows she does. Can almost hear how his words clash with the doubt in there. How she twists them around, examines them from different angles. Seems to hesitate, but then it's gone and she is sharper than a splinter beneath him.

She squints in the ruthless sunshine, beads of sweat on her upper lip. _God. _Draws his thumb across it. Should just kiss her, grind down on her for all and sundry to see. Maybe he could still seduce her back into that hotel room. Her lips moist and misleadingly inviting, the unsullied red that needs to be corrupted. She catches his eyes flickering down to her mouth. Knows what's on his mind.

"Don't even think about it!" And he knows, it'd be like kissing razor wire. Nothing veiled about the threat in her voice.

"Goddamnit Freckles. It doesn't have to be like this." _Shit._ He probably shouldn't put his one ton of meat on that belly of hers. Can't be good for the little spud.

"Yes. It _has_ to be like this."

She spots the momentary weakness, a lowered guard and seizes it. Jerks her leg up fast and furiously. He twitches to the side, her bony knee missing his groin by a whisker. Hurls herself away, pushing him down in the process. He tries to trip her, throws his arm after her but she hurdles over. The woman is like a goddamn eel. Kicking a cloud of sand in his open mouth where he lies like a beached wale, hand reaching uselessly for her foot.

The tourist beside him cussing. Bet he got himself a mouthful as well, _the nosy sonofabitch._ Watches her go. Kate running, what's new? It's so pathetically cliché , he just wants to cry. A happy, yapping stray dog, bounding ahead to run with her. Thinking it's some kind of game.

They are nearing the pier now, and the _'Merdeka'_. He races after her, the sensation of chasing a lost cause and he doesn't even know why the hell he bothers.

"Stop chasing me!" The dog barking, hopping after her, giddy with happiness. He wants to kick it but that would truly endear him to her. So he runs beside her, as unhappy as the mutt is delirious.

"Stop running then, goddamn it! What are you - _five?_"

Has to shout to make himself heard. The waves, the sea, music from a nearby bar. How the hell are they supposed to be responsible for a kid? Chasing each other like imbeciles. It feels old. Like a script they have. She's right, this is how it has to be. They'll never be able to just sit down and talk like adults. They don't have that spectre of insight, no other way to solve conflict.

That fear of becoming his father, roaring his pain out in the kitchen. Slurred consonants and bellowed vowels at night, making the house tremble. '_You never loved me, you never loved me_. 'And Mama's voice drowned in his fury. _No._ Doesn't want to be like that. He doesn't.

"Just fuck off Sawyer. Go back!"

"No, I ain't fucking off." People staring at them, like delinquents the way they shout and swear across the beach.

"You're an asshole!"

And Holy Mother of all things screwed up_, h_e's too old for this. A sudden longing for Juliet and her predictability. There would have been no chasing _her _speeding rump in a puff of sand and dust.

"I'm the asshole who'll - make sure - you've got - everything you need." In staccato, speech broken up by his lungs cramping up.

Passing people sunbathing like normal folks, portly and content. Like well fed walruses, lifting their heads up, mildly curious about the scuffle.

"Everything I _need?_" His jeans, too large for her, the folded legs falling down over her feet and she tramples on the fabric. He fears she might trip on them. "You have _no _idea what I need!"

_Has no idea what she needs_? She's so goddamn naïve, it scares him. Thinks they can live on butterfly flutter and love. She needs security, to be safe. Enough dough to arrange a new passport enough to bribe herself out of a pickle. Needs to be stocked up on drugs and syringes until the kid is born. And she'll need the best fucking doctors money can buy.

"I've always looked out for you. Always!" The words rasp his throat, scrape his tongue. Has one single thought. _Don't let her get to the boat._

"What's on the ship. Sawyer?" she yells not turning her head.

"Nothing! Ain't nothing there for you." Which is a stupid answer, making her even more determined to find out.

They are near the water, the tide high, licking the sand, trying to drench their feet. His soles raw and painful after trotting barefoot across shells, pebbles and sand. She swerves down the waterfront so that her shoes splash in the water. How the hell is she still running? On pure fury perhaps, fuelled by humiliation.

"Stop for fuck's sake! I'm about to have a fucking heart attack." He might just. And maybe it would be better for all involved.

But she doesn't stop. Her legs stretching, leaping – yelling that she doesn't give a damn if he keels over, face forward in the ocean. She sprints, water staining the denim cobalt blue. Takes a wrong step, landing at an awkward angle and down she goes. Hitting the water like a pro, in a big old splash, catching her fall with a hand, dangling the plastic high above her head with the other.

Expects her to jump up and set off again. Instead she just sits there on her little tush, lazy waves hitting her at the waist. Arm up in the air as if she's won some fucking competition. Holding that bag like a trophy. Her face red from the exertion. He bulldozes forward, shuffles his feet in the water, thinks she'll get up then but she doesn't.

"You thought it would be dead, didn't you?" Too honest, too direct. She has no finesse, no ability to wrap things up, slide them in. The serrated edge to her voice, ripping him apart.

Stares at her mouth when she says it, how the bottom lip vibrates. She so near the breaking point. Her hair, flapping around her head in the wind, strands of it fluttering across her face. She makes no gesture to brush it away, busy keeping the plastic from getting wet. Her passport, drugs and cash.

"Stop talking crazy." Takes a swipe at the bag, managing to snatch it. Still she doesn't get up. "I was fucking _ecstatic_ that freakish little thing was alright."

And she just turns her eyes up at him, like an obstinate teenage girl objecting to being grounded. It smarts unexpectedly, her thinking he would ever wish her ill.

"Don't you roll your goddamn eyes at me. I'd do any-fucking-thing for you, and you know it!"

Struggling upstream, knowing the undercurrent will take him no matter what he says. He's looking for a loophole, a way to escape but there just isn't one and she looks so fucking sad. All the freckles standing out against her skin, as if they're about to fall off. Should say he loves her but he just can't. His love is worthless, less than that. It's a burden. Look where it's gotten her. Saddled with a risky pregnancy, a broken heart and crumbled expectations.

"Ecstatic my ass! You would have been off the hook and - " Her voice high pitched, and he feels like shushing her or slapping her. She is veering on hysterical and what scares him is – he hasn't even given her a proper reason to freak out yet. Doesn't know how this can twirl out of control any worse than it already has.

"I ain't looking to get off any goddamn hook!" He tries to keep it under wraps but he's between tears and violence, just like her. Knows no other way to be. Wades closer, offering a hand but she smacks it away with gusto. Sitting like a stung toddler in the low water. His arms falling limp at his sides. _No use._

"Like hell you're not! I don't understand you... you've been baiting me all along. _'Just take me!'_ Pushing and goading and now you -" She wields her desperation like a torch over dry grass. Her eyes crazed and not really there, intent on burning it all to the ground, taking this down. Her hair lashing over and around her head like a nest of angry snakes. Dark and glossy. "You're_leaving_ - aren't you?"

He shrugs because it's too hard to say 'yes'. Wants to lie to her. _No_, he'll never leave her. _Never. _She purses her lips. A withering scorn instead of weeping. Won't let him see her cry, no quivering bottom lip or tears sprouting forward if she can help it.

"I've got no choice, Kate. Have enough to tide you over for a while, but I need to pick up some work."

"_Work_?" Says it as if it were something obscene. He cringes at the panic in her voice. She won't want him back.

"Hell, you know what I_ am,_ Kate." And he's as loud as her now. As if his hoarse shouting is going to make her understand. Is going to make him get through to her. "_Christ,_ I'm an ex convict Kate, I hustle people for a living. How did you think this would end?"

_In rose petals and wedding bells._ In a fake idyllic suburban dream. Him as a security guard and her as a mechanic. _Namaste. _If they had never come back, he'd still be living that dream. Fake as it was, it was a comforting illusion.

"_Work_ - as in what you did to Cassidy? That kind of _work_? That's what that carte blanche _bullshit_ was about?" He waits for it. Any moment now, she'll pounce on him. Looking at him with those green eyes, the venom suddenly injected in them. _Traitor_, they say. _You fucking coward._

"The only kind of work I know. Well_ fuck it, _with the goddamn kid and all, we'll need some major cash to keep you afloat."

"Why didn't you just work the Danes?" Acerbic, that joking tone he knows is deadly serious. "You were half in there. Could have harvested a nice little profit from their trust fund. "

"I wouldn't have risked the business for a con. 'Sides, I wouldn't have been able to work them in front of you."

"No, because you're a regular gentleman now, aren't you?"

He doesn't answer her. What can he say? He is a useless old hick. But he would never have been able to pretend in love with one of those girls with her in the sidelines.

"I guess it's not too late. I mean, you've done the ground work... You could just take a trip to Copenhagen." Aloof, no emotion in her voice. Nose in the air and he knows that underneath it all, she's profoundly rattled. She's come so far today. He never thought he'd see the day and today of all days. It makes him sick.

He glances towards the ocean. The waves, high out there outside the reef, turquoise and teal, white foam riding the surf. Wants to throw himself into them. She waits for him to say something, her face so stiff he's afraid it might shatter. He stretches his hand out, palm up, reaching for her.

_Take it._

She views it sceptically. Seizes hold and draws herself up. Water dripping from her clothes like a little waterfall. Ends up chest to chest. And hell, he's got her fingers in his, he won't let go.

"This ain't something we can kick into the long grass and forget about. I've got to handle it." He hugs her hard, envelops her completely, crossing his arms behind her back. Bets she can hear his pulse drumming petrified in his chest. Holds her to him with force, moving his hands down to her hips, thumbs drawn over the sides of her belly. That little thing in there. Wonders if he'll ever see it in person. And he wants to now. Wants to see what beauty might come from two fucked-up scraps of human beings like them.

"The ship, the business... it can be sold, can be turned into another kind of venture. Hurley set it all up. For_ us_. You wouldn't have to leave if you didn't wantto. This is you, bailing. "

"There ain't no goddamn boat to sell," he says against her forehead. _No Hurley either,_ but he can't say it. _Yet._ She's got sand there too, little specks at the hairline.

"No boat?" Propels him away from her, taking a stumbling step backwards. And before he can do anything she has ripped the bag out of his hand. Expects her to set off like an idiot again but she is passive now. She lifts her eyes over his shoulder, the dock way over there, behind him, jerking her chin up. "The ship, it is right there, James - "

"It isn't ours anymore. We've got nothing Princess. Nothing."

His voice swallowed up by the sound of waves and it's almost peaceful for a moment. Soon he won't have her either. _Oh hell_, who's he kidding, he's already lost her.

"What aren't you telling me? What – ?"

Searching his eyes for an explanation, something better than the measly bullshit he's giving her. _Sorry Darling,_ there is nothing more to get here. Just another expendable asshole.

"I meant every fucking thing I said. It's you and me, ain't nothing gonna' change that. I'll be back for you."

Watches the effect of his words. But it isn't a victory. The air seemingly escapes her. The girl deflates. She doesn't believe him and he can't say he blames her.

"I won't want you back, and I won't take your money. I won't be there."

He knows it's the truth and it sets him off. Words dripping from his mouth, vile and thoughtless. Focuses on the sight of the white shirt, wet up to her belly button and sticking slickly against her skin.

"And how the hell will you manage? How will you and the little spud get around?"

"I said I wanted you, I never said I _needed_ you. I can take care of myself."

The two of them, like strangers. Doesn't dare to touch her. Though his fingers can't stay still, drumming against his thigh. Flexing, wanting to grasp her behind the neck and kiss her. Make her forget this crap.

"Sure you can. What kind of stupid stunts do you think you can pull hoisting around that belly like a beer barrel? You think some schmuck is gonna' let you near his wallet? You're going to get caught and you're going to give birth to the little one in jail. Alone. That what you want?"

And it doesn't help. It's not what she needs to hear. Her eyelids clipping fast as if she can't believe what he's just said. Frankly, neither can he. He is not fit to be around her.

"It wouldn't be the first time."

Mordant, sharp teeth tearing at his heart. Yeah, she did that already. Because he wasn't there. Won't be there this time either if something goes right to hell. Between a rock and a hard place and he wants nothing but her softness.

So intent on trying to think of some way to undo the damage, to find a way to navigate this - he almost misses it. The slightest shift in her eyes. And he isn't the focus of her attention anymore. Pupils growing smaller as she peers into the harsh sunlight. Her face falling, crumbling. He's vane enough to think it's because of him.

"Jack...?" She sounds small, as if she might evaporate any second. "You...?"

Like stepping into a vacuum, as if his lungs are not up to the job any longer. And they've had enough of hyperventilating panic attacks today. He pretends to yawn when really he's just trying to fill up with oxygen and it doesn't seem enough, because, _fuck_. There will be hell to pay. She'll never forgive him for this.

_Never._

Knows already how she'll be and he prepares himself for the barrage of her rage, that brutal firestorm of hers. Knows it will escalate.

Swerves around to where her eyes are glued. He senses God is snickering above him. Jack, dapper in a fresh shirt and wrinkle-free slacks. Her mouth agape like a baby bird waiting for a feeding.

He wants to slip an arm around her waist to show that she's _his_, remind her that he's not the enemy - but he doesn't. Knows she'll floor him, knock him unconscious if he so much as nudges her now. She is nobody's fool and the moment she finds out about Hurley she'll know. Will line up the facts one after another and in a nano-second, she'll come to the same conclusion as he has. No more safety net. _He will have to leave her._ There is no other ending to this story.

"Jack…? It's you… and the others? Are they…? "

Damn. Should have told her. Should have, could have, would have. The rest proceeds in slow-motion, how she stretches her arms, out, stumbling in the sand like a child learning to walk. A sour taste of fear burning at the back of his mouth. She'll hug the freaking hero any second now and she'll hate him for being such a spineless bastard.

"Yes, they're are back on the ship. They're fine."

Sawyer can do nothing but watch as she embraces the bastard, how he rubs those stupid perfect hands all over her back, roaming way too far down.

Next he'll tell her about Hugo. And it will be final. A done deal.

"You're back, you did it Jack... you did it." That's all he can hear from her, mumbling it into Jack's neck. _Shit_. They'll kiss soon enough. She'll realize what a flat-out loser he is and those two will find comfort in each other over Hurley. "But... when?"

The Doc ignores her and looks only at him. A thin-lipped animosity, barely hidden.

"You haven't told her, have you?" The accusation ready to shoot out, jagged and thorny.

Like driving, full speed over a cliff edge. The mixture of relief and horror at being here, finding himself in this moment. When everything goes to wrack and ruin.

"What? Told me about _what _Jack?"

He fears the slow movement, how she twists her neck to look at him as the pieces fall into place. Sawyer fixes his eyes on his bare feet. _Can't. _Jack still with his arm around her. Everything is wrong with this picture. Everything.

"James? What's going on...?" Weeds herself away from Jack. And now she only looks like a little girl who has been lied to. The disbelief when she meets his eyes. Shaking her head slowly. "You...? You _knew_?"

_Over. _Like walking straight into a booby trap he himself has set up. Sharpened bamboo poles tearing through and he knew it would be like this. But he hadn't anticipated the pain. Back to where they started. He's a sleazebag and Jack is her saviour. Nothing has really changed.

"So you going to do this or do I have to?" Jack holds a protective arm around her. And at that instant it is plain to see, any moron could tell. He was lying when he said he was over her.

"You _knew_. You didn't say... anything?" Aghast, her fingers tapping at her mouth. He knows it'll burst soon. It will well out like hot lava and all the fights they've ever had before will pale in comparison. "Last night in the car, the clinic... all morning. _This!_ Us talking and you - you said... nothing?"

Unforgivable. Lying to her, leaving her. All of it. And the worst thing is, he can't see how he could have done it any different. This is how it has to be.

"Was gonna'…" He sounds more like a bullfrog than a man. The way it comes out in a blurb, not carrying any weight at all. She was never meant for him.

"You were _gonna'_?" Jack mimics Sawyer's cheap drawl, has it down to a pat. Something of that old ugly jealousy seething still. Wants to sink his fists into his face, make a bloody mess out of that concerned frown. Who the hell is he to judge? He's let her down too. They both have. She really has a piss-poor taste in men.

"Just fuck off Doc, we just went to check on the…" _Fuck it._ He doesn't know yet. Now is not the time to get into that as well. He hangs his head like the dog he is.

"I know all about your little '_slip-up'_." Jack having the nerve to use the term _'slip-up'_ upsets Sawyer more than he can explain. Makes him want to defend it. The skeleton kid, that picture still in his breast pocket. It makes no sense and it wasn't planned or even wanted at first. But it is no mistake.

"Hey, watch it Doc -" He looks at her when he says it. _I want you. Want that kid._ Tries to say it with his eyes but the connection has been severed. The sticky spider-web thin strings have been pulled apart. She is blind to him now, sees only betrayal.

"I'm so sorry I left this up to _him_, Kate." Jack's glare is not averted from Sawyer. "I should have searched you out immediately when we docked. - It's about Hugo - "

"What about Hugo?" Kate's eyes flickering in between them as if she's watching a damn ping-pong match, holding the Doc away from her. Wants to say sorry_, should have, could have._ Was fucking about to, so how is Jack the good guy in all of this?

"Go ahead Doc... since you're gonna' anyways." He knows exactly how this will go down. _He is history_. He drives his hands into his pockets, hunches his shoulders up. It's all over.

One of those little funny local wooden boats being pulled up next to them and it seems somewhat sacrilegious to have this group of people clomping in on what is his ruin. His little death. The fishermen chattering beside them. Hoisting the buckets with their catch off the boat. They are momentarily distracted until Jack clears his throat. As if he's about to hold a goddamn speech.

"Something happened back there Kate... on the island." All earnest, a good man. Sawyer clenching and unclenching his hands inside his pockets. _Just say it, you long-winded sonofabitch._No, it won't go down like this. He inhales deeply, fills his lungs up as if that will help at all. Like getting wind in his sails.

_He has to do it._ He'll be the one saying it, crushing her. She's his, no matter what, and nothing Jack does or says can change that.

"It's Hurley, Freckles. He didn't make it." The clouds gathering at the horizon, slate grey and uneasy. The sky bearing down on them, oppressive and heavy.

She stands rigid at Jack's side. Frowning, trying to soak it up, mouth opening, closing attempting to make sense of the world. Her head cocked to the side and he wants to shove Jack far away from her. Take her in his arms again. That shirt billowing and deflating in the wind, shaping itself around concave and convex curves.

"He ain't coming back." He says to make it absolutely crystal clear, to make sure she's understood. The only good thing that comes of it is how she takes a step back from Jack, shaking his arm off. Arms wrapped around her midriff as if her stomach is hurting. "I'm sorry Freckles... I'm sorry."

She studies him and he takes the opportunity to try to approach her. One step at the time. Gingerly reaching for her. Meets her eyes and there is a softness wafting by, a slight opening before she slams shut. Her hand shooting out in front of her chest. A unambiguous stop sign.

"No. You don't get to do that! You had your chance. And I... I already laid it all out there. And you... you -" Short puffs of air as if she's about to cry.

"Yeah. You did. You sure did baby-girl." The miracle of her saying anything. An abyss of regret opening up around him. How it's too little, too late. How it doesn't matter anymore. He should have been that man for her, the one who makes everything better. The one that protects her and wipes away the past. Instead he's the one filling up the pain, a fresh new load. Just add to his tab. He's hurt her so many times already.

"You didn't tell me." A statement, not a question. That look. It's not hate, not anger. It's not even hurt. Just utter disillusionment. He's fallen from the sky and landed in pool of sludge. And she is just realizing that this is where he belongs. Not the lover, the friend, the man who can keep evil at bay. Not the _one_. A calm that has his neck freezing over. A chill so great, he shivers. Cold under the sweltering sun. And he counts the seconds.

_One, two, three._ How the coin drops with a clunk. Didn't make it. _Dead._ Not coming back. Knows what will come next as sure as he knows his own goddamn pocket. His betrayal larger in reality than he could have ever anticipated. The effect greater, the implications overshadowing everything he'd expected.

"No baby, I couldn't." The miniature dome, under the wet fabric, an unmistakable little pot belly. Wants to put his hands over it. Protect it, her, them. Make it alright.

_Three, four, five._ She'll begin moving right about now. _Yes_. Sight set on him, _check_. Like watching a tsunami approaching, disaster unavoidable, not being able to do one damn thing about it. No point in trying to escape, he'll lie down and let her wash over him.

_Six, seven, eight._

"Hugo is gone," she says and drives her closed hand up to her mouth, jamming her knuckles against her lips. The finality of it. She's not crying, not hysteric. And this freaks him out more than anything. Like being at the eye of a tornado. A haunting stillness.

"I know."

This is his cue. No point in counting the seconds and it doesn't matter that it isn't his fault Hugo is dead. That's not what this is about. It's the not telling. The planning to leave her. It's everything that he isn't – the not being the right man for her. Not enough. Soon, she'll put it all together and she'll lunge across. She'll attack him. Beat him black and blue and he won't do a thing about it. _Let her_. He deserves all he gets. Expects she'll try to crush his nuts with that deft knee kick of hers. He isn't fooled by her apparent calm.

"He's… Hugo is dead. And you - you're _leaving_?"

Chin raised high and her face distorted, all asymmetrical, barely hanging together. Steels himself for the blitz of her furious fists, the amount of pain she packs into each of those punches. How she can thump the air out of a grown man.

She steps from foot to foot as if the ground is burning her soles. Perhaps she's waiting for him to take it all back, to say the right thing, make it all well again. But he's all out. All wiped clean. Thinks that they might still be alright when finally she lunges.

But not for him.

Jostles her way past. _Swish. _Like that. Slipping on, right by him, making him pivot around on the spot like a wind-cone. Her steps heavy and out of rhythm, how she runs, trying to avoid bumping into the throngs of people on the beach. And he doesn't pursue her. Because there is no more to be had. Nothing more to do. Guess he got his carte blanche after all. But he doubts she'll forgive him.

He watches her back, how she grows smaller and smaller. Thinking, that this, a white shirt flapping in the sea breeze, the blue of her jeans disappearing towards the pier – this might be the last he'll ever see of her. The spot moving towards the place where Merdeka lies docked.

And she's gone.

...

So this is what it's like, to lose her for the umpteenth time.

As if he's been anesthetized. Can honestly say he doesn't feel a thing, absolutely nothing spare the sensation of crushed ice against the back of his neck. A coldness that doesn't jive with the warm breeze fleeting in from the sea.

And if this were a movie, he'd be running after her. He'd chase her down, he'd shout to the winds that he loves her, _oh fuck,_ how he loves her. He'd say they don't need money, lets be crazy, let's just live and love.

But this isn't a goddamn Hallmark production. This is life, _his_ fucking life. This is how all the tiny threads he's spun come together. Every action, every choice taken, weaving an ugly picture indeed. Abandoning yet another woman and child.

Can picture how Kate runs onto that boat. Claire and her little fig. Big reunion. And even though he's neck deep in his own crap and really doesn't have the energy to think of anything else, he still hope Claire has it in her heart to forgive Kate. She'll need a friend now. Perhaps Claire will return the favour. Kate was there for her when she'd had Aaron, maybe she'll stick around. Though he seriously doubts it. As far as he knows, Claire has no money, no profession, is even less able to support herself than Kate.

Jack comes up next to him. Senses an _'I told you so'_ coming on. So he rotates around, hurtles by, cutting it so close he knocks into Jack's shoulder. Somewhat satisfying. He wants to go back for a second round.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Doesn't answer, lets his legs move on auto pilot, throwing one foot forward after another. Out. Away. He needs a drink and needs Jack out of his hair. Hasn't got the first idea of what to do next. Only that he won't go after her. It's over and done with and he can't bear the thought of an actual goodbye.

"Stop! Where the hell do you think you're going?"

Jack, nabbing his shirt from the back. He jerks away, fabric ripping at the seams. The swearing sounds ridiculous coming from Jack's mouth. That's all he can think. He's relatively calm now. in his daze Now that he has a way out. An emergency exit. Away. Run. Away from here. He has to make it happen quick, before the doubts creep over him. Before his sentimental heart starts whispering, there is still a chance to make this work.

"What do you think Doc?" Jack, the champion of lost causes, blocking his way. And he just side steps him, barging into a woman. She gives him a once over and smiles. Fuck. There will be no other, he realizes. He'll find no one else. He'll be alone.

"I think you're skulking off to get piss-drunk." Yeah, Jack knows his modus operandi. Knows how he deals with crisis. _Alcohol_ – it's simple enough. Sex used to numb pain too but no longer._Shit._ He'll be all alone.

"You've got it Hoss. Now get the hell out of my way."

"You're staying. You've got to deal with this." Doc pursuing him, breathing down his neck. Following him up the steps to the little beach bar. He's an idiot. _Stay here?_ What the hell will he do here? Work as a beach cowboy, pick up sweaty German tourists and sell his sagging ass for a penny?

The numbness begins to let go and he wants to grapple for it, force the comfortable apathy to remain with him. It leaves in it's wake a panic so imposing he has to steady himself with one hand on the first thing that he finds. Which happens to be a little sturdy Balinese waiter who looks slightly terrified to have his shoulder squeezed hard by a stranger.

"Look who's talking! I'm just having a fucking drink for Christ's sake. You know what that's like, dontcha'? Or pills was always more your way, wadn't it Doc?"

Sawyer slumps down on a stool by the counter snapping his fingers at the barman while Jack remains standing.

"Now that you've ruined my life, may I offer you a fucking drink, Jackass?"

Flares off a pretend smile in Jack's direction. Might as well have been sitting on that old airplane seat and goaded the Doc about cajoling a kiss from her. That's how far they've come. Walked in circles until they've ended up at the starting point.

"I didn't ruin anything. That's all your own doing. I couldn't hurt you anymore if I wanted." As true as any words ever spoken. All his own doing. Jack too close, his clean, ironed shirt sleeves on the bar disk, next to Sawyer's. Wants to have his say, rub Sawyer's failure in his face. Hell. The guy isn't over her. A load of bull crap, what he'd said back then. _It only needs time_, his ass.

"Did you ever think of _her_? What you're putting her through?"

"Yeah Doc. That's exactly what I was thinking of. - _Her._" Elbows on the bar, cradling his forehead in his palms, tries to keep from shaking. The dim smell of soap and ocean, from her. "Only thing I've been thinking of morning to evening, around the clock, year after fucking year - so don't you come and point your fucking finger at _me_ buddy!"

Jack looking down his nose at him. Just like old times, at each other's throats.

"You weren't there! You have no idea what it was like nursing her back the last time."

"It ain't your problem this time around, is it? I've got it." Hah. That's a big joke. He needs Jack, needs him on his side and all he can do is alienate him further. The humiliation of depending on his goodwill. A goodwill he is certain Jack will extend.

"_You_? _You've_ got it? You're going to take care of her? You can't even take care of yourself!" It isn't as if any of that is new, still it rips into him as if Jack had made ribbons out of him with his scalpel.

"I might not be a fucking spinal surgeon but I've always made a pretty swell living for myself. I can earn enough for her too. And _my_ goddamn kid."

Jack's right. He's a joke of extremely bad taste. Can't take care of jackshit. His hand trembling so violently he spills half of his drink on the countertop.

"Your kid?" Jack snorts, wiping a hand across his mouth. "Does she _know_? That's how you're planning to support her? Scamming and running cons? What is it exactly that you do James?"

_You're incredible Sawyer…_ What he does, Jack would blush purple if he knew the lot of it. Has the repertoire of a virtuoso, can play any damn instrument he wishes, any genre of preference. Shows the ladies a few lurid tricks between the sheets, goes the extra mile so to say. That's what he does. Easy enough formula.

"I do what I have to do Doc." Legs twitching , his bare feet against the barstool's cool metal leg. Fuck, even his goddamn teeth rattle against the rim of his glass. He pounds his chest, with a closed fist, pretending to cough when really he needs to distract from his jittery quivering.

Money. Fucking money. That's what it's all about. A measly band-aid on a wound that will refuse to heal. Will fester, inflamed and ugly for years. Or maybe he's flattering himself. Perhaps it doesn't take all that much to get over him. Hell, she's got Jack. He'll do it again. Sawyer knows it. He'll take care of her. And as fucking unacceptable as that notion is, the alternative, her all alone is infinitely worse.

"You screw every woman in sight and you flaunt your condoms around. But did you use one? Nope. No, you go right ahead, destroy her life and then you call your old friend Jack to pick up the pieces." Sawyer isn't a blushing violet, but the indignation makes his face heat up. Remembering slapping those condoms on the shop counter in front of Jack. Well, it had already been too late by then. The little bugger already conceived that very morning. Jack leans into him. He can smell the asshole's after shave. Something expensive, no doubt. "So, did you at least fix the papers? Did you marry her?"

_Marry? _Trust Jackass to focus on the essentials. And he sweats. Like standing out on the street with Kate this morning. Feels it flushing his face, dripping down his forehead. The skin around his mouth both moist and cold.

"No of course I didn't fucking _marry_ her!"A pinch at the pit of his belly. Because he should have, knows Jack is right. "What the hell do you think this is - _Sound of Music_? Tralala on the mountain tops, we're bound for happiness. That what you think Doc, marriage is in the cards for us?"

"I think you should have."

_He knows he should have._ Maybe the gesture would have meant something to her, would have made her a little more forgiving. Maybe it would have tied her to him.

"And what freaking difference would it have made anyway?" He'd still be standing here, itching to pick a fight with Jack, unloading his resentment on him

"Her papers might be false but you have yours. You'd have a legal claim to that child if she gets caught."

He swallows hard. Feeling every bit the dumb redneck he is. It hadn't even remotely entered his mind. Has a sudden vision of that kid, an abstract lump in a blanket being dumped in an orphanage. Legally an Indonesian citizen and him, unable to assert a valid connection to it. Hates Jack for being smarter, for thinking logically.

"Yeah well, looks like it's too late for that."

Sweeps his drink and slaps some cash on the counter. Out of here. He's got to go now. He can't do this shit and the longer he stays here chatting to Jack, the bigger the guilt will grow. He has to follow through. Get on the next flight back home.

Hoists his denims up by the loops as he elk-legs it through the bar down the steps. Jack's confusion blaring after him when Sawyer sets off towards the Emporium.

"Hey, get back here!" Jacks voice ascending. "You're going back to the ship! You're going to face up to this."

"Keep your fucking wig on," he mutters, feeling like the lowest kind of low-life ever. _Hell_, Jack might have had problems with booze and drugs but he'd been around for her. Had even proposed to her, the cunning sonofabitch, though how much good it had done him, Sawyer can't tell. Perhaps it only prolonged the inevitable.

"You better not be skipping on her. It's time you stepped up." Jack hurries on next to him. Almost comical how instead of chasing Kate he now has Doc hounding him.

"I've been stepping up forever buddy, so just bugger off."

_My kid, my woman,_ he wants to say. Wants to beat himself over the chest, defend his little unit. It's crazy. The woman in question just scampered off in a cloud of dust across a Balinese beach.

"Then _be_ there for her." They pass a group of local women, meowing in their usual way. Offering manicures and massages, giggling and teasing in their own language. "It's not rocket science. Just be a man, try not to be such a selfish prick."

"Maybe that's the fucking crux Doc, I ain't man enough. So here's your fucking chance to be a hero. Go ahead, be my guest, slither right back there. Catch her when she's down."

Gives Jack one of those smirks. Tries to pretend that he's not crippled. The loss of her, slowly crawling into his conscience. The beach sliding, slipping in front of his eyes. Feels like he's in an earthquake. Salty air in his eyes, something stinging and everything under the sun is skewed.

"I've heard she's been known to lower her standards before. It could happen again."

Watches out of the periphery of his eye how Jack's chin slackens. A deep seated sore spot that nothing can erase. How her indecision made them both doubt themselves.

"What the hell are you talking about?" It's hard to imagine that they were almost friends not long ago. And _he_ – he's a grown man but fuck he feels the tears gathering behind his lids when he blinks. Pretends it's from the stark sunshine.

"What do you think?" He stumbles up the first stone steps to the Emporium garden. Needs to speak to Henry. Get him to pull some cash off his last remaining credit card, pass it on to her.

"I think you're scared witless and you're leaving, dumping her on me. Again."

_Touché._

"Well ain't you the smart one Doc." The words like porridge, thick and curdling on his tongue. Needs to be alone. Needs to be allowed to pull something over his head and weep for the fucking mess he's made of everything.

"I won't do it." Jack, bone sure and it makes him panic. Unexpected. He _has_ to do it. There is no one else.

"Sure you will. You've been waiting for this. Hoping I'll slip up and you could step up again."

Thinks of guilting him into playing middle-man by mentioning Juliet. The bomb. How he'd shattered Sawyer's little comfortable make-believe life. But it seems so far away now. None of it real.

"Yeah that's it James. I've been waiting to watch her grieve another one of your mishaps. I've been really looking forward to having her lying in my bed, hankering after you, you self-centred jerk."

Sawyer stops. His fist clamped by his side.

"She ain't gonna' be grieving for no damn baby, _dickhead_. This one is gonna' be just fine."

Hates this, comparing battle scars. Mine are bigger than yours. It's all about her. Wonders briefly if that's what makes it so goddamn hard to walk away, always did. The fact that they both want her. That getting her is a validation beyond the obvious. A confirmation that he's good enough, that he's better than Jack.

"I thought I was done with this, with _both_ of you. I was finally moving on, And _you!_ - You go and do the only thing that can really break her."

Sawyer remains silent, watches as Doc pulls up his wallet and digs around in it, searching the little pockets. As if he's going to throw his change at Sawyer. Finally finds what he was searching for. A piece of paper. Drops it by Sawyer's feet.

"Here! Here's the number to that other one. You can deal with it on your own from here on! I've done you enough favours James. Consider us even."

Sawyer snatches the paper off the ground. A little smudge of red earth on it. _Cassie_, Cassidy's number.

Starts walking, shakily, not so certain now. Aware of Jack staying behind watching him leave.

"It'll break her, James."

He keeps on walking. No, it won't break her. She's tough as flint – she won't break that easily. And he must go. _Must._ No idea what will happen. Only that Jack will be there, whether he'll accept Sawyer's money or not. He'll be there for her and Sawyer won't have to worry about her starving. He'll see to it.

He's fundamentally a good man and Sawyer is not. Simple as that.

...

The first thing he does. He takes that little piece of paper and calls Cassie. Doesn't know why. Only that it is for selfish reasons, to reassure himself. Wants to hear that her girl is doing alright, that it hasn't ruined the poor sod's life, having a doochbag father like him. Two signals go forward and waiting for the third he almost hangs up. Hell, he's such a legendary coward. Can't even face up to this. Taken aback when she answers. A polite hello, voices in the background, static. She sounds distant and he squeezes his eyes shut before he can steady his voice enough to say something.

"It's me."

"I know it's _you_. I figured that out when you called collect from Indonesia. Make it quick, I have no patience for your bullshit."

"I... I just want to tell you. It might be a while. I am trying to get settled. But when I have, I will send you more money. For your kid."

"Clem. Her name is _Clementine_. And I don't want your money."

Where has he heard that one before?

"Hell Cassie, I'm trying to do the right thing here."

"So this is about your conscience, not about you daughter?"

His daughter. It makes his stomach churn. He has a daughter. He already has a fucking daughter and he's about to have one more. What the hell is wrong with him?

"It ain't like that -"

"If you want to do something for Clementine, write her a letter." Cassie is as classy as ever. Keeps her voice controlled, emotions to the minimum. But hell, he doesn't understand what she's on about.

"A_ what_ now?"

"I don't need your money. But I do want you to write your daughter a _letter_."

"A letter?"

Hears her draw her breath in. Frustrated

"Are you going to repeat every thing I say?"

"Pretty much."

"You're gonna' write everything down. Every sordid detail. How we met, how you screwed me over. Who you are. No bullshit, no glossing over what a shitty little person you are. You're gonna' tell her everything so that I won't ever have to."

"Yes Ma'am."

How the hell is he going to do that? How on earth can he explain to a little girl what a disgusting world there is out there. How no one can be trusted. Least of all the faithless sonofabitch who fathered her.

"Don't _'yes Ma'am'_ me you asshole! Just do what I say."

Wants to hang up. Cassie always had a knack for seeing through him, much like Kate. Except when it really mattered.

"I'll still send you money. When I can."

"No you won't. I'm getting married. I don't want anything to do with you. I don't want you to call. I don't want you so send checks or make your nice friends run errands for you. Nothing. Just a letter, you hear?"

"One letter."

"You can put it in fifty letters if you need. It won't matter. As long as you tell Clem the truth."

"Clem." He repeats it stupidly. Remembers Kate when she'd come back to the island. How her eyes had shone at the mention of the girl. Said she looked just like him.

"So what happened Sawyer? You found Jesus?"

"Something like that."

"Oh Christ! You did it again you sleazy son of a bitch! You got some other dumb girl pregnant."

"How the hell do you know?" he bursts out. Refrains from looking around him. As if she's got a camera rigged on Bali. The woman is freakishly astute, still can't quite believe he'd managed to con her.

"I do now. You should have your thing snipped off, you bastard."

"I know. I will - " He will goddamn it. Or he'll remain celibate. It doesn't seem such a big deal right now. Without her.

"You make beautiful babies though - can't argue with that." And there is a touch of sun to her voice now. At least that. That kid of hers making her happy.

...

He packs his bags. All the while hoping she'll come through the door.

Tries to think that this too will pass, or some other trite old chestnut. Tries to convince himself that one day will come when it doesn't feel like his intestines are being minced through a meat grinder. One day might come when his heart isn't shrivelled up in a hard cramp.

Finds her dress on the bathroom floor and he knows already that he'll lug it around like she'd done with Aaron's baby blanket. A symbol of something lost, an attachment to objects. Ashamed of himself when he swipes it under his nose. But he needs the scent of her, and it seems only marginally better than sniffing the silky black panties she's left behind. He picks them up too. Not because he's a goddamn pervert, but because there is nothing else left of her. Stands there in front of the mirror with a dress in one hand and her underwear clenched into a little ball in the other. Almost has a heart attack at the voice from the door.

"Jimbo, does she know you're here mooning over her panties?"

He quickly stuffs the scrap of silk into his jeans pocket. Glaring at Miles in the doorway. He looks a little gaunt. More salt than pepper in his hair.

"Enos, what the hell do you want?"

"Came to check on you. Henry's looking for you. Had something vital to discuss with you." Miles follows him out into the room. Glances at the open bag on the bed, Sawyer tucking the dress into it.

"How is _she_ doing?"

"Not great Boss. She's upset, but then again, so are all of us, dude." _Except you obviously_, he hears under breath but he choses to ignore it. Maybe it was his own mind playing tricks on him.

"Claire?"

"Yeah. They talked. All hush-hush, chick's stuff. I didn't hear it. Claire hugged her though, that's got to mean something."

He grunts, goes through his wallet, his last possessions. Not in a mood to talk.

"Hurley's mom will be here by tomorrow. Meeting with lawyers, see if there is anything we can do to help her with all the paperwork."

"That's mighty big of you Miles," he says and not in a sarcastic way either. Glad he doesn't have to be here to deal with it.

"So really? You're leaving? You're not even coming back to say goodbye."

Turns his back on Miles as he folds his socks, a shirt and places it all carelessly in the bag. Doesn't know why he bothers folding anything anyway.

"Nope."

"She might have calmed down by tomorrow."

"Doubt it, buddy."

"Dude, what did you say to her? She almost bit my head off when I asked."

Almost. Would have ripped his from his shoulders had he shown his face there.

"It don't matter."

"Claire will be returning to Australia the day after tomorrow. I might go with her. So dude, you really going to leave that chick with Jack?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"I thought the two of you were like - " Miles holding his hand, index and long finger crossed. "Tight."

"We were. We ain't no more." His gut scrunching together instinctively at the thought. After all they've been through, he'll just let Jack have her.

"Sure, whatever. I think you're making a mistake. If this is about dough, I'm sure Jack would lend you some."

"I ain't taking money from that sonofabitch."

"Nah. I get it. I'd lend you if I had any. Just business has been kind of slow lately. Hoping I can establish something down below."

"Look Miles, I ain't got time for small talk. Gotta' go."

"Sure buddy," he stands there hesitating before throwing his arms around Sawyer in an awkward embrace. "See you around. I guess."

Turns around in the door, a smirk, something of the old Miles.

"Hey Jimbo, I _knew_ you'd knock her up. I always had you pegged as a _closet_-family man behind that jerkwad exterior."

Is about to show him the finger but the door closes gently behind him. Sawyer lifts the bag off the bed. _Now._ Got to do this. Congested as hell and he's man enough to admit. He wants to do another foetus impersonation, like the time she left him in Yogyakarta. Wants to curl up like a tight little armadillo in the bed and never wake up again.

A family man. That longing for something enduring, something ordinary. _Little House on the Prairie dreams_. Him as Pa'. A brood of kids, working with his hands and suspenders. A simple life. But then again that's because Pa' wasn't a sleazy con man, and Ma' wasn't a fugitive with commitment issues.

Just needs to get out of here, get moving. Distance will pull her away from him, will make it fade. Decides there and then that he'll allow himself one last binge. One more pity fest with booze to take the edge off. Once. Then he'll have to move on. Get a grip. A whole hoard of people depending on him now.

...

That afternoon. A taxi ride to Ngurah Rai airport that makes him physically ill, watching the Balinese streets swishing by. He throws up on the sidewalk the instant he steps out of that cab. Washes away the taste of defeat with a lukewarm Coke. Pushes his way through tourists and airport hustlers. He's got a picture of a skeleton baby in tucked in his shirt and her underwear in his jeans pocket. Someone searches him, he's going to look like a sick freak.

Now he's standing at the ticket counter, feeling like a rat. Can't wait to get on that flight. Get some more booze down his throat. Flirt with an airhostess. Anything not to feel as if the end is here. As if nothing matters.

It won't be alright. Ever again.

A wad of cash in his hand, trying to pick a flight. _Jakarta,_ leaving in an hour. Toying with the idea. A future, unsure, maybe he can set something up locally and come back for her later. Scam someone into giving him a cushy high-flying executive job. Oil or banking or something, maybe he can bluff his way through. _Though probably not._ No use in day dreaming. As unlikely as someone offering him a ride to the moon. He can fake many things but real skill or knowledge – no. Hell, he barely graduated from high school, can't read a graph or talk business lingo.

The airline officer is obviously getting impatient. A line of people waiting behind Sawyer. She drums her pink fingernails against her computer screen. Her bright white smile in her cinnamon face strained and irritated.

"So Mister, you have decided, _yes_? Maybe you wait a little, come back later?"

He grins at her, tries to buy a fraction of time. The things he's done, hasn't done. It all comes back to one thing.

The family he's lost. The shitty, shitty experience growing up as nobody's, belonging to no one. Clementine. She never asked to be conceived in the first place. She certainly didn't ask for a deadbeat father who doesn't give a fuck about her. Kate, the baby. No future.

The family he'll never have.

The flight to Hongkong in three hours, and then on to LAX. But he can throw money at the problem. He can help Cassie, pay his way to redemption. He can send it by the bucket load to Kate. Make sure she always have enough. He glances backwards at the line of people shuffling their feet, glaring at him for keeping them waiting. Hoping like a fool that he'll spot her running across the terminal. Hoping she'll try to stop him. But there is no one there. Just him and his stupid duffel bag.

"Okay honey, set me up on the next flight," he says throwing the cash on the counter.

...

_Thanks for reading! You're the best. Always grateful for your reviews, comments, feedback. I really hope you enjoyed it, even though it ended on quite a bitter note. Hopefully I can have the next chapter out soon but knowing myself I'll want to spend a bit of extra time on that one._


	41. Another intruder

_Hi. (Gulp.) I'm here, lugging this gigantic hairball of drivel behind me. Ought to be the final one. Only it isn't...(blushing an unflattering shade of lilac)_

_Big fat sorry for leaving you hanging so long. Been fretting over it for over a month and rewritten it a zillion times and damn, no one told me this finale thingy would be this hard! (Honestly, by week 4, ending it all in a church with a guy called Christian didn't seem such a bad idea.) Now I sit here staring at my 25k plus wondering if I was drunk when I wrote it. And because I'm such a long-winded old windbag there will be a part 1, and a part 2 (think of it as a two-hour finale though not a fraction as exciting.) _

_Since people are starting to ask me if I've abandoned this story, I'll just get it over with and post it. Though I really don't think it's ready to show its face in public yet. Too long, too much, too... (and it's pretty much un-edited so apologies for spelling mistakes, will come back and clean up later). Hope you don't hate it._

_Warning: Rated M ( NC17) for mature content, bad language, sex, violence; the lot and a lot of it too. (So don't read if you're a sensitive soul.)_

_Disclaimer: Not mine. Not really._

_And so much love to all you wonderful people for being such awesome readers and reviewers. _

…

**Another intruder**

**...**

She lifts the bamboo basket up onto her hip, waving goodbye to the old lady, Mrs Vegetable, the big Kahuna of the little sleepy fishing village, ruling it with a gentle iron fist. She runs the little open-air eatery by the beach, serving as a sort of open-air market. Seven of the ten fishing boats down at the harbour are rumoured to belong to her as well. Kate is trying to get on her good side, but she hasn't gotten very far in the month that she's been here. The old woman drives a hard bargain.

One month, since her world fell apart. But she's a survivor, she has always been able to do it, sweep up the pieces and go on. Or as in her case, run. But this time there is no reason to run. She has her fake passport, a legal right to reside in the country for the rest of her life.

Hurley's last favour to her – the ship. The enormity of that gift, she still can't believe that sort of kindness exists. When they'd met up with the lawyers to go through his assets in Bali, an addendum to his will had been found. Before departing for the island, he'd simply signed the ship over in Jack's name, with an informal instruction to sell it off and pass on the proceeds to Kate. Even in death, he'd turned out to be her benefactor.

The only thing that sits like a heavy boulder in her stomach is the fact that Hurley had predicted so accurately, the imminent end of her and Sawyer. Had known somehow they'd screw it up eventually.

So here she is. At the end of the world. The sweat dripping down her back and her little passenger kicking up a storm, small bubble like sensations, still new enough to make her stop in her tracks at the onset. Reassuring her. _Not dead_. And if it stays quiet in there for too long, she'll jump, move, try to startle it. Poor thing, probably never gets any sleep.

Her belly starting to look more like half a globe than a beer paunch. Her baby – for every day, she dares hope a little more. And it's hers, only hers.

...

She walks home. It's the rainy season, the road is just an earth track and her rubber sandals get stuck every two steps. The air is fragrant and musty, rain forest and sea, trees with large white flowers she doesn't know the name of. A little tropical paradise. A couple of children saunter on behind her, hiding their toothless smiles behind little coppery hands if she turns around. Giggly and shy, curious about the strange foreigner who has taken up residency in the old Portuguese house up the hill, overlooking the bay. They stay behind at the outskirts of the village, probably not allowed to go further.

The villa is crumbling but she likes to imagine how it might have been in its glory days. Probably inhabited by some rich spice merchant and his family. But that was a long time ago. Now the iron fence has been pilfered and sold off as scrap metal. The pillars of the front porch are cracked and the shutters hang off their hinges. The jungle has sneaked up and leans over from the backside.

At night she sits in front in an old rattan chair, the sounds of the jungle enveloping the porch, and the view of the bay unfolding beneath. Her own sanctuary.

There are no other foreigners in the village, no television, no internet. And after all that time on the run, she finally feels safe. Hasn't begun to worry about the birth yet, the lack of facilities here in the village. Thinks that if only she makes it that far, she'll deal with it.

But he haunts her. Day and night.

Like a pissy ghost, a phantom lingering, bugging her. She'll wake up in the pitch black tropical darkness in a sweaty mess, forgetting for a moment where she is. His warm hands on her skin disintegrating, going up in smoke as she comes to. In her dreams, she's always back on the island. With him.

She deals with it the only way she knows how to. She forbids herself from thinking of him. But she can't say that she succeeds. Sometimes it's the shadow of him, spotted in a doorway or slinking by. That lumbering swagger he has, a glimmer of dirty blonde hair at the corner of her eye, gone when she turns.

The nightly visits, there is nothing she can do to drive them away. Perhaps enough alcohol to pass out, a sleeping pill might do the trick, but that's not an option now. The vivid dreams, crisp white sheets, skin glistening, everything floaty, rhythmical, pleasure so real she wakes up with her hand between her legs, muscles switching. Ashamed and hating herself for being so weak.

Physical. Just physical. Overload of hormones and the lack of an outlet. That's what she tells herself. It doesn't change the fact that it's _him, _always him. Not some hot actor, old boyfriend or a faceless stranger. Always that faithless bastard, his dirt blonde hair and those deft hands.

She takes the last few stone steps up to the clearing where the villa lies, peacefully. Home. Her home. Courtesy of Hurley. And Jack, of course. He'd set up all the practical stuff. Including a monthly delivery of new drugs for her shots. Even set up a birth plan, booked a suite at the nearest hospital on the mainland for the event that she makes it that far.

She pulls the unlocked door open. There are no thieves here, and if there are, they are quickly dealt with under the Mrs. Vegetable's firm regime. No thieves, but not much in terms of company either and she's beginning to feel the stress of it.

She'd asked Claire to come and stay, but not surprisingly she hadn't been ready to go back to that. To the sister lie. Every day, she tries a little harder to let go of Aaron. Reminding herself that he wasn't hers to begin with and that maybe the little intruder in her belly will fill the hole. Knowing damn well that it's never that easy. One person doesn't make up for the loss of another. So here she is, alone in a house, with nothing to do to drive herself crazy with the thoughts of Sawyer_._

...

She puts the basket of vegetables down and kicks her sandals off. Something smells different. A foreign scent detected in the air, trying to blend in with the musty smell of the house, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Her bare soles cold against the floor, she's drawn to the open back door. Water pouring, splashing like a heavy rain. Her nerves twitching, entwining, making her nauseous as her eyes adjust to darkness inside, padding towards the sound and the light flooding in through the open backdoor.

And there he is. Outside, in the bright sunlight, like a mirage, a hallucination.

The man she loves. Looking just the same as he always does. His hair a little longer, a little messier. But otherwise. Exactly the same. She tries to pace her breathing, to control the tremble, holding onto the doorframe to steady herself. Her head spinning, as if she's caught too much sun.

Him. Here. And nothing makes sense.

How he looks impervious and hostile. Using a rubber hose to spray his naked feet, slender and beautiful where they emerge beneath his jeans. Just continues doing what he does, not a word, no greeting - nothing. A cigarette at the corner of his mouth, the spicy smoke trailing the air.

The shirtsleeves pulled up above elbows, sweat glistening on his throat, disappearing down the collar. Hates her involuntary physical reaction, her fingers longing to touch him. His lips drawing her eyes to them as if he were metal and she a magnet.

"How did you find me?"

He stands up, hose in one hand, letting the water gush, not caring that it splashes over his jeans.

"Jack."

She almost flinches at the sound of his voice. She's going to kill Jack.

"Figures," she mutters.

He lets the cigarette drop to the ground, runs his tongue over his upper teeth before he answers. A cold smile that doesn't invite, doesn't encourage.

"Talking of whom... Where are you keeping the old Jackass?"

_It throws her. _

Him asking about Jack. How he isn't the least contrite, not repentant at all. He isn't saying sorry, he isn't bargaining or asking her to be reasonable. No remorse whatsoever. Just glowers as if _he_ has any right to be pissed at her.

"I'm not _with _Jack, Sawyer." She could have mentioned Jack's new job in Singapore, as consult for some fancy hospital. Ashley, the woman, some hotshot finance whiz he'd met in Bali one of those last days. Could tell him, but Sawyer has hardly deserved it. The cruel son of a bitch.

"Well, golly. I guess _something_ is new. Not scampering off to Doc at first sign of trouble."

One look at his face, that callous emotionless mask he wears and her temper flares. Maybe because she has done exactly that. Many times. The truth hurts.

"I want you out of here." The voice not her own, coarse and mean, not the correct response to a daydream coming true.

"Well, ain't no more boat off this island tonight." His chin prominent, sticking out in all its unshaven scruffiness. "Too bad."

He places the hose on the ground by his feet without turning the water off.

"Why? Why… are you here?" She could bribe one of the fishermen to bring him to the mainland but... Oh. Damn. Doesn't know. Wants to ask him, have him explain, why he freaked out like he did. How he could have left her.

His arms, honeyed muscles flexing with his movements, gleaming in the sun. Yearns to run her hands over them. His hair stringy in his face, sweaty and unkempt. A man worth hankering for, worth losing a little face and dignity for. His beautiful hands, skin like a light maple syrup. She shakes the thoughts loose. God. She can't stand here and gaze at him like a lovesick moron. And he sees right through her.

"Miles says you've been missing me, Sugarpops." Damn Miles. What the hell does he know? Has missed him like a bad stink, a prickly allergy. Has missed him like air.

"Hardly," she snorts. And it feels unreal to have him here, in _her _house. Where she's spent night after night dreaming of him. Hating him in the morning, for not being there.

"Says you ain't been sleeping well." _Miles the blabbermouth_, what does he know? He's on an entirely different island altogether. It's not like they hang out a whole lot. He's different now that Claire has returned back home. Kate still holding onto hope that she and Aaron will come back eventually. She and Miles seemed to have a little thing going on, but Miles is tight-lipped about it.

"I sleep just fine. Now, fuck off Sawyer."

But the sight of him in that threadbare shirt, shabby and ungroomed makes her ears heat up; makes the tips feel like they've been grilled. Hormones, just hormones. She wants him, it doesn't mean anything. Doesn't mean they should or could be together.

"Hey… that ain't nice Honeybug."

_You hurt me,_ she wants to say. Hates him, for building her up. For tearing it all down. She'd gathered all her courage, put all her feelings on the table and he'd just... She doesn't even understand it. Equivalent of jumping off that helicopter, had just walked out on her.

"What do you want? Miles is a boat-ride away if you're looking for him."

"I ain't here for that crabby sonofabitch. _You _know that. I wanted to see you."

Her mouth tastes sour, the disillusion of him just taking off. She'd looked for him, a last desperate attempt. Gone back to his room at the Emporium on that day. Found it cleaned out, not even his toothbrush left behind.

"Now you've seen me. You can get the hell out of here."

"Nice little shack you've got here." Stupid small talk, she wishes he'd just go up in smoke, just like in her dreams. "So old Jackercracker set you up then? Home sweet home and all that."

"Cut the bullshit, James."

Those days back on the island, when she'd told herself it was all physical. He was never supposed to be '_the one'_. Wasn't supposed to take up permanent residence within her. She'd never meant to care for him.

Should never have allowed him to mean so much.

He makes a little half turn searching for something. The back of his shirt dark from perspiration. A flash of him, chopping firewood way back when, swinging that axe. How his jeans would barely hang onto hips. His broad back slick with sweat, those shoulders with their little downward slope. That little flaw saving him from perfection.

He tosses something backwards, carelessly. A black scrap of fabric comes flying her way. Her hand shoots up in the air to catch it.

"Reckon those are yours."

_Her underwear. _The damn pervert. The black silk panties she'd shed on his bathroom floor back at the Emporium. A month ago. That day, when he broke her heart.

"What's _wrong _with you?"

"I don't _know_ Kate! What _is _wrong with me?"

His eyes like bonfires - the red-rimmed furious kind. If she didn't know him better, she would have guessed he'd been crying. Though since this is Sawyer, JB or his old friend Johnny Walker are more likely to blame. That's how he deals; he marinates, pickles his problems in alcohol. The drunken anger all too familiar. Can virtually smell the Scotch from where she is. He grapples for something in his shirt pocket.

"I also carry this shit around. So _you_ tell me Freckles! What the _fuck_ is my problem?"

He flicks a cardboard thing her way as if it's a piece of garbage. Apicture,glossy at touch, turns it around warily while he stands there grinding his teeth, seething, perfectly immobile, letting the pipe spew water over his feet.

"_This_...? What...?" The picture muddles her brain, she can't think. "You had _this..._? Why?"

He takes a shaky step towards her, she can see how he swallows, the Adam's apple bobbing. Senses something dangerous in the way he squints at her, his sudden nervousness. A casual wave of his hand at something beside her.

"Just pass me that goddamn soap. I've been going from one cattle truck to another for forty eight hours straight."

Doesn't know why she obeys. Too unhinged to think clearly. Puts the ultrasound photo down, and stretches the little bar soap towards him. He lunges, fingers encircling her wrist. A hard tug and she falls over, tumbles down onto the muddy, wet ground.

"You bastard!"

He throws a leg over her making them topple over one another. Hoisting himself on top of her like a heavy sandbag. His weight holding her in place. She can't resist inhaling his smell. _Don't ever leave. Don't go._

"I've missed you," he says and she can't tell if he's being slick or if it's genuine. Whatever it is, he changes so fast, she has no time to pinpoint what's going on.

"Get off - me!"

Surreal, how near his lips are to hers, smelling more like peppermint toothpaste than booze. Grim, but she can tell he likes this_._ Relishes in ripping the control away from her. Taking advantage of the latitude his size gives him.

"So this must be the famous glow I've heard so much about." A peacocky, phoney brashness that makes her spine prickle.

Water still flowing, the hose somewhere by their side. Her fingers search for it blindly. But he grasps it before she has a chance, and she gets an eyeful of that magnified smirk before he jams the mouthpiece against her waist, shirt flicked upwards. She stops breathing altogether. Gasping like a drowning person.

Like wrestling with a boa constrictor - only _this_ one has a mean aim with the hose. Holding her down, brutally spraying her from top till toe. The stream hitting her face, her stomach, her chest, everything. _Everywhere. _

"I don't –" Spluttering. The cold, cold water. And he's ruthless, relentless. Jostling her around, tossing, rolling in the sludgy, slippery slush. Like grappling in wet clay. She swears he laughs when she yelps out.

"Ain't you gonna' say you've missed me too, Peanut?" Tries to pummel him but she doesn't have enough leeway. Can't seem to head-butt him either and the more she struggles, the more doggedly he pins her down.

"Crap it's cold!" She splutters and worms to escape him. "Stop it! Sawyer!"

Flustered when he presses her harder against the ground, bearing down using his hips.

"As soon as you say it."

Changing strategy, one cheeky hand wedged in under the hem of her shirt, flat against her belly. She tears at him, frantically trying to divert his assault. He has forfeited all rights of ever touching her again. _But he doesn't give a damn. _

"Get off me!"

"No can do. You ain't said it yet."

Stubbornly moving south. The tickle of his fingertips and the spray of water moving over her belly button down the sensitive skin of her lower abdomen. A straight line, straying down her jeans, bringing the hose along, dousing. That evil grin growing wider as he adjusts his grip.

_And oh hell!_ _Oh God. _

And how he does it, she has no idea. With a twist of his wrist just inside the waistband, he flicks her flies open. Just like that.

"Don't you dare!" she cries, squirming, struggling against him. Her panties, old and stretched out elastic, loose at the waist, offering no resistance whatsoever. Gulps and tries to wedge him off, wringing and snaking to escape, but it just gives him the elbowroom he needs.

"Don't I dare _what_, Scuttlebutt?"

Squeals at the rush of water when he pushes the mouthpiece further down.

"Oh for God's sake!"

Gasps at the stealth attack, disguised as rough and tumble. A presumptuous finger, glazing over her folds, gliding down, deeper. Oh crap. _The jet of water. _The combination of heat and cold, chill and warmth, tension and feathery satin touch. His fingers.

_Wants to kill him._

"Oh Christ!" Could die of shame, how her legs part automatically, resistance crumbling like meringue under his fingers' insistent pursuit. "You asshole..."

"Yeah, I'm an asshole alright." Biting into his bottom lip, eyes smouldering on her. Large and heavy above her, all the while, smiling that wicked smile.

"James! You - "

"Say it!"

Her thighs wide open, leaving her completely at his mercy. The maddening, icy cold torrent, wrenching away her composure. The lick of fingers, a shameless pilfering, invading her, taking what he wants. And she's fraying at the edges. It doesn't take much.

It's a mistake, she knows this with her mind but the skin asks; '_what the hell took you so long_?'

"I bet you've missed me plenty, Buttercup." Like corn syrup, thick, cloyingly sweet and smooth. And who wouldn't miss it, his hand knows what it's doing. She knows she could get away, if she tried. He's let up his hold, she could easily make him stop. If she wanted to.

_Yes. No. _She doesn't know. He steps up his game, fingertips dipping, blazing down, making her nerve endings go hay-wire. Sinking a finger inside of her, then another, putting pressure on. Moves from mellow to fretful and then slipping back again. His mouth hot against her neck, whispering things she can't decode, can't make out. Can't think at all. Not with the spiraling, soaring breathlessness. Doesn't know whether to clench her knees together or open up wider.

"You still want me to stop?" Flashes her a mockery of a smile, just baring fangs, that's all. No warmth to it.

_No. Yes. No._ Must be one of her dreams. Must be. Soon she'll wake up bathing in sweat, unsettled and frustrated – missing him.

Waxing and waning, with the ripping, rolling rhythm of him. Red hot, billowing desire. She might as well have poked wet fingers into a socket and electrocuted herself. The effect is the same. White flecks covering her eyes. Can't see straight.

And she should put an end to it. Ought to, but her mouth doesn't obey. Gasping is the pinnacle of her verbal expressiveness. _The bastard._ The cadence he creates. How he builds it up, makes her rise and fall, using just the right intonation, the perfect tempo. Tantamount to extortion, the surge swelling out of control.

"You want me to stop, you gotta' say it. Tell me you missed me."

And she has. Every minute, every second she has missed him. Testosterone and man. But he's a boy, all foul play and dirty tricks. Knows she should wedge him off her. She sure as hell isn't going to come for him.

_But it's too late. Too damn late. _

That ability he's got, to dispossess her completely. Hears herself, like someone else, letting out an undignified sound. A complete system melt down, while he keeps stroking, long flamboyant caresses, water and fingers. His smile against her neck, that diabolical grin. And his lips come floating feathery light over her cheekbone, down to the corner of her mouth.

"You have, haven't you?"

Enthralled by his breath searing against her. She does what comes naturally. Her lips parting just a hint, in short-winded anticipation. The tip of his tongue, that minty scent infused with clove and sugar, running over her top lip. Peculiarly unfaultable. And just as he presses down more adamantly, she throws her head to the side, dodging him. Finally finding her voice.

"I didn't! I didn't miss you. Not one bit."

And just like that, he pulls his hand back. Tosses the hose aside and raises himself above her, catching her wrists, one on each side of her head. Eyes trailing down her belly to the open jeans. And she feels grotesque, tries to draw her thighs shut, suppressing the tremble. Forces herself to catch her breath in a vain effort at regaining her self-control, at clearing away the flicker of white hot spots behind her lids. An altogether futile attempt at mustering up even an ounce of decorum.

His hair falling down over his cheeks where he hangs above her, the sun trying to force its way through millions of fine strings, shimmering a dark Whiskey gold.

_Here. _He is not supposed to be here. This is _hers_. Her sanctuary. She was almost beginning to think she could go on without him, that she might be alright. Alone.

"Why, James?" She barely manages to form the words.

Just like that. He releases her. He scrambles to his feet, shooting a withering glare at her where she lies like road kill by his feet, still too stunned to move. Nowhere to take cover, nothing to hide behind. Like a stuffed sausage, hips and thighs swelling like a prize hog. His eyes dashing down her body, lingering on her belly, as she fumbles to cover herself up, feeling filthy and cheap. The way he's just bulldozed right over her.

"Maybe 'cause I ain't the type who scuttles off without goodbyes." Takes a cheap dig at her, what she did to him. She could bring up the time when he left with the raft, but that's ancient history. Not relevant. She knows what he's getting at and maybe he's right. She had been a wimp. Hadn't wanted to leave him there in Yogyakarta, hadn't seen another way.

She gets up shakily, yanking her jeans up, the fabric heavy with water. Her fingers refusing to obey as she attempts to button the flies. Lets her hair fall over her face. Doesn't want to see him. Doesn't want him to see her. The humiliation of what he's just done. Cheapening all that they where, making what they had just about the physical. And she, shamefully his accomplice. She could have put an end to it. Should have stopped him.

The only thing in her field of vision, his bare feet on the ground. Wide apart, as if he's sure of himself. She draws snot in, the tears come easily nowadays. She wants to blame it on the pregnancy, but she's always been skinless, defenseless round him.

Looks up to find him, playing aloof and unruffled as if he hasn't just mauled her on the ground. Waiting for more, waiting for her to hit back.

It occurs to her.

He's come all this way, traveled to this remote place for God knows how many hours – _to fight._

That's it. Not because he misses her, not because he wants to make up, isn't here to try to talk her into giving him another chance. He's here to fight. _Just fight._ For whatever twisted reason, he wants another round, wants to draw blood. On the warpath and he has her cornered. No way through it but with unkind words and brandished weapons. And they have a stash of ammunition to last them till doomsday comes. The list of offences, on both sides, imagined or real, goes on and on and on.

"Goodbye? It's been over a month! And this? This is how you say goodbye?" Wants to cry now. How he can just obliterate her. Annihilate her. "A peck on the cheek, a handshake, a letter. But _you_, no - not you -"

"Nope, not _me_ Kate." His chest heaving hard. Speaks so slowly, his voice so abrasive, she feels like she's being dragged behind a bull-cart. "_This_ loser is good for a _fuck_ and that's _all_ he's good for. Ain't that so, Sugarpuff?"

She wants to turn and run. Wants to leg it out of there. But she knows he won't let her.

"Why are you talking like that? I _asked_ you to stay with me." She wraps her arms around herself, trying to protect her belly from his eyes. Swallows those degrading tears – doing her best to keep her face from falling apart.

A hint of regret fluttering by, a glimmer of him, the real James,quickly replaced by a clenched jaw. His nostrils flaring as he looks down at her. This man. The one she loves. He takes a step closer.

"And _why_ the fuck is that? I ain't the one you want and I sure as hell ain't husband material. "The fury etching lines between his eyes. Ugly when he looks like this. Vengeful and poisonous, wielding his barb, trying to get a sting in. "I reckon you're just scared of being alone."

"You asshole... you -" She glances at the door. An escape route. Doesn't want to have this fight. Doesn't want to see him, be near him. Wants to run.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm an asshole. We've already established that." The sound at the back of his throat, like an old vicious dog. Follows her eyes towards the door." Go ahead and do it Kate. No surprise there. Run along. You weren't ever able to just face up to all this shit."

The twang of the South in his voice, anything but sweet. His words cutting, slashing right through her.

"How is it that _you_ get to be angry?"

"'Cause I _damn_ well deserve to be!" Because he wants to lash out at something, anything. Wants to blame someone else for his cowardice. For walking out on her.

It's mortifying, how she still wants him, how her skin has missed him, even now, after all this time. The spot between her legs, in a mellow state of shock. They glare at each other. His brow is drawn so low, the bridge of his nose almost disappears under it.

"You gonna' take the easy way out? You wanna' run? Head for the hills? The door is right there Kate. I ain't stopping you." He cocks his head towards the doorway, that bristled tone, the one that says he knows her better than she knows herself. _Fuck him_. This is her house. If anyone is going to be leaving it, it's him. Uninvited. Unwanted.

"So, use it Sawyer. Go ahead! Go! Get the hell out!"

She's shrill and unpleasant. Sounds like some cheap soap opera actress. But that's what they are. One long, painful soap opera that should have been canned a long time ago.

"Why the fuck haven't you ever fought for me?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"A damn good one! I was the sucker you screwed on the sly, but I was never the one you wanted in broad daylight." A low-pitched growl, hitting home. _Hard._ Maybe that's all they are; sexual attraction, just plain lust. The thought comforts her, diminishes the devastation of losing him. "Was I ever the _one _for you, Kate?"

_Was he the one?_ How dare he ask her that? The graveness of it resonates, echoes against her silence.

Doesn't stop to think. She slugs him first, tries to smacks him over the head. He dodges her, a little sideway duck only to cuff her right back. Flat palm, flicking her lightly over the top of her head, annoying more than anything. Clenches her right fist and draws it back slowly, aiming at his smug jaw.

"You can punch me all you want to." Slaps her hand away, thwacking at it like a kid. "It won't change one damn thing."

Turns on the spot. Taking the steps in one go, long legs disappearing through the door, into the house. Her house.

Tears stinging her eyes. He's demented. But if he wants a fight, she'll give him something to fight about.

Heartless bastard.

...

He knows she'll come after him, foaming at the mouth . The wet, sloppy sound of her feet against the stone floors, the speed with which she catches up with him. Their clothes have dripped a path from the backdoor into the little kitchen. Glad he had time to scout out her house before she came back. Moves around as if he owns the place. Mostly just to rile her.

Can barely look at her, her mud-stained shirt, all askew. Her face smeared with red earth from cheekbone to chin, a wild-eyed desperation.

_He shouldn't be here. _Chasing rainbows.

Ought to have just walked on. Should have just bought that damn ticket, set his sight on the horizon and boarded that plane. Never looking back.

"So you came all the way here to say '_goodby_e'? Seriously?" Barely contained temper, oozing ugly and violent under the surface. "You want my forgiveness too, James? You want your _stupid_ carte blanche now, huh?"

He might have gotten her off, but he hasn't gotten to her. At all.

"I..." He throws his hands out. _Damn her_, how the hell is he supposed to know what's up or down? He's unbalanced, barely holding it together as it is. "I don't know okay!"

Surprised at how his voice rises. He turns towards the kitchen counter. Leaning, holding himself up with both hands on the edge, staring down at the tiled surface, avoiding looking at her altogether. Must cool it. Can't crack now.

Exasperating how they communicate in different codes, one unable to decipher one another. So used to not being understood, to not understanding. This is how they always are, blinking bewildered at each other. And still, she knows him better than anyone.

"What? You're here to give me your money? Is _that_ it? You've pulled a profit from some poor woman and now you're here to settle your guilt?"

"I ain't got no money Kate... That's not why –"

"Then what _piss-poor_ excuse do you have for coming here? For barging into my house? Uninvited. For doing _that._.. out there!"

The sensation of her pliable wetness, the feeling of her squirming under him, lingering on his fingertips. Could have led to walls being torn down, a reconciliation of sorts. But it was just sex, nothing else. Just gratification for her and a show of power for him. Glad now that he hadn't given into the urge to take her out there in the back yard, glad he hadn't let his guard down.

Glad and so damn sorry.

"No need to get so damned worked up about it," he says glancing at her sideways. She has fucking blossomed. The outline of her breasts and the contour of her stomach, it makes his mouth dry up.

"Yeah there is. There is!" She'll jump up and down, stomping those little feet if he pushes her any further. He's sure of it and the asshole in him wants to get under her skin, piss her off properly. He's a bit surprised he's even alive and breathing after that stunt with the water hose. Had expected a proper blow-out.

He twists the lid off the little glass pot of sugar standing on the counter. Sticks two fingers in it and brings them to his mouth, licking the tiny white crystals off, demonstratively. Winking at her. The very fingers that were just inside of her.

He knows it's a cheap shot but that doesn't diminish the satisfaction of watching her redden, ugly dark flecks staining her cheeks.

"Cut it out, James!"

He attempts a change of tack. Tries to rear in the overwhelming urge to aggravate her, to poke at what's raw and sensitive. Wants to explain what led him here. What made him come back, made him turn around when his mind was already made up. He sighs, takes aim and turns towards her.

"I called Cassidy..."

Leaving her here, going back to L.A. would have been the right thing to do. But when it came down to actually paying for that ticket, something had fractured inside of him. On an impulse, he'd snatched his money back from the girl at the airline desk and stalked out, heart pounding crazily in his chest.

Had taken a cab back to Danan's hang-out. Still can't quite understand that choice but it had felt like a compromise. Leaving but not completely. Had crashed at Danan's place and they'd tried to set up a little neat property scam but it had fallen flat. Or maybe he just hadn't had the patience to see it through. He'd abandoned the whole thing at an early stage. His heart hadn't been in it, he'd been distracted, drunk too much. The excuses many.

Missed her too much.

"Go on!" Snapping at him, has no patience with his bullshit.

"She's moving on. She don't want anything to do with me... don't want my money. Won't let me near the kid."

Squirms at the way he sounds, whiny loser. As if Cassie isn't absolutely in her fullest right to put a bullet through his worthless head, should she feel like it.

"Shocker."

"Yeah well, and she's getting hitched... and shit, I thought that..." Doesn't want to repeat this exact mistake. Doesn't want to knock on her door one day, have her stove away his damn kid and pretend she's over him.

"What _did_ you think James? What sort of epiphany would make you think it'd be a good idea coming here?"

He doesn't know. The insanity of it. There is no rest to be had with her, no peace, no calm. Bullets flying in every which direction, missiles whooshing by. He has no idea what drove him back. Just that it was her. It's always been her. And maybe he'd thought that he'd find Jack here. Eager to fill his shoes, to step up and take on his responsibility.

"That sooner or later some sonofabitch will come along, snatch you up and it'll be too fucking late. You and me will be dead as a dodo and there won't be no going back."

"Oh, someone will '_snatch me_' up now? You dickhead!" And he is. It's too late already. Too late.

Turns his back to pick up the kettle standing on the countertop, hands shaking. He reaches for the jar of coffee on the shelf above the gas stove, slamming it down with a clank. Wants to hurl it against the wall. _Fuck._ What had he expected? A heartfelt reunion? That she'd be happy to see him?

"It ought to be _me_, Freckles." That's what he wants. Doesn't care if that means hunkering down in the battle field, if it means traipsing around in a minefield. As long as he's with her. "The one who snatches you up. It ought to be me."

"You can't just walk out on me and expect me to... _w__hat_? You want me to say I've waited for you? For when and if you might feel like _'snatching me up'_?"

That sodden and sullied shirt, hanging sloppily over one shoulder, as if she's ready to wrap her legs around him and screw his brains out, lips puffy and sweet as if she's been kissed too enthusiastically. Something provocative about her. And he doesn't know why, but the sight of her freshly pleasured makes him want to bite her head off. He is a healthy grown male who has spent the last four months jacking off to some rose-tinted fantasy of her.

_Sexually frustrated_ wouldn't even begin to describe it. Frustrated in any shape or manner possible; mentally, emotionally, eternally.

"And why the hell not? Why can't I do that? Ain't that exactly what you did?"

Doesn't reply, just glowers at him. She must know he's right.

Fills the kettle with water from a bottle. As if he's right at home here. Tries to switch on the gas but the flame refuses to materialize. The big gas tube standing beside the stove must be finished. Uses a little electrical cooker instead. Wants to blow it all up. Her, him, their goddamn inability to talk like normal folks_. _Wants to blast the whole house to hell_. Her house. _That's how she'd solved her problems and right now it seems as good a solution as any.

Too bad she's out of gas.

For years he has loved her. For four fucking years. And here he is shouting at her in a dinghy little kitchen, unable to say exactly what he wants to hear from her.

_Anything. Everything._

Acts as if she doesn't have an effect on him, pretends to focus on the coffee. Moving lazily, searching the drawers for a spoon, accidentally backing his ass against her as he does.

"I ain't the only villain here." He scoops up coffee grains from the jar, dividing it up between two cracked cups with tea stains. "You fucked me over and disappeared in the middle of the night. I hound you for months and months and then in a blink of an eye you change your mind and I'm supposed to do _what _with that?"

"Why are you here _James? _Why did you follow me here?"

The pointed intonation of his name jars his ears. _He doesn't know._ Just wants to shout and scream and he knows it's unfair, but that's what he wants. Doesn't want to be mature about it. Wants to be ridiculously childish. Wants to toss her up on the counter and take her hard and fast, soft and slow, hell, anyway she'd want him.

Wants to battle it out, once and for all in brutal honesty. Take the gloves off and have a good go at it. Sensing that this might be the last fight he'll ever have with her.

The water heating up fast, and he reaches to pull the plug out. A jolt so hard it has him stumbling backwards. Crackling, flames shooting out from the socket, the kettle. The electrical shock making his muscles twitch, and his heart constrict. A loud _'poff'_ – must have blown a fuse somewhere.

"Sonofabitch!" Shaking his hand against his thigh, his whole arm numb. The hair on his wrist singed off, leaving tiny little black stubble behind. But he's so pissed he hasn't got time to think of the pain. Throws a tea-towel over the kettle. Patting it down before he propels around, zooming in on her.

"Why are _you_ here, Kate?" He snips back, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. Readying himself to go head to head, hand to hand combat. The pain searing from wrist to shoulder, augmenting his anger. "Why are you hiding out here with Miles of all people?"

It grates him that she can just hooked on and set up a new life. Has just moved on and left him behind. No biggie.

"I guess you're hoping Claire and her little ankle-biter will come out and stay as well eventually. So Miles is what? Bait? This still all about Aaron?"

He knows he's stirring up a hornet's nest. But he doesn't care. Can't stop.

"I'm not going to stand here and listen to this . You wouldn't understand -"

"Try me!"

"Aaron, he's... It's like he's part of me. But I know he isn't mine."

_That's how I feel about you_, he wants to say but he can't. He just can't.

"Fuck, you go through hell for these people." _But not for him._ Never for him. "They aren't your family, Kate!"

_I am_. _I am. _

"Enough. You're going to leave. Now." Like that, cut and dried. She points at the door and he struggles to reel the aggression back in. He hasn't just travelled for eons by car, plane and a fucking shrimp-boat to just be kicked off the damn island.

"Well, I guess you're out of luck then Kate. No more boats tonight."

She doesn't reply, just looks at him as if he's one of those pink disgusting lizards you find in dark places, takes him by the hand and literally drags him through her house out onto some kind of front porch facing the sea. Stomps in through the open door, leaving him there like an idiot. He hesitates, wants to follow, wants to get his teeth in and never let go. The argument, unsatisfying, leaving him no fulfilment, no better off than when he arrived.

But before he has time to decide, she comes storming out with an armful of pillows and linen and crap, throwing them like missiles at him.

"I want you gone by daybreak."

Barely time for his jaw to fall down before she slams the wooden door shut so that the windows rattles in the house.

"Hey Freckles... Can I have my bag?" he hollers after her. But there is no more sign of life. No sound, no movement. Nothing. "So I guess we're taking it slow huh, Hon?"

A faint glimmer of light behind the shutters. Guesses he should be grateful she didn't just kill him and chucked his useless ass in the sea.

He glances at the daybed. A bit like the one at the house in Bali, version dilapidated and ancient, not made from hardwood but bamboo The mosquito netting yellowing and he just hopes there aren't big fat holes in it. Though perhaps catching malaria might be the only way she lets him stay. Almost smiles at the thought of her cool hand on his feverish brow, changing compresses and forcing him to take big fat pills.

He sheds his wet clothes, letting them lie on the cracked floor. It's uneven, pieces of ceramic missing, but beautiful in a tired old way.

Stretches out on the bed in his boxers, tugging the netting closed around him. The bamboo whines, gripes and bitches as he turns to find a comfortable position, the mattress is as thick as a napkin. But the way the wind blows in through the bay – it feels like being back on the island. Lies awake for the longest time, hoping she might come sneaking out and lie next to him. _Forgive him. _Make love to him there in the open air, make everything alright again. But the door remain shut.

Tomorrow. He thinks. Tomorrow he'll be better. He'll break it all down and build it back up again.

...

It seems like he's blown a fuse with the coffee kettle, the clumsy bastard. She changes it but she doesn't bother switching on the light out on the porch. She feels half guilty for leaving him out there in the darkness, but then again – it's not as if she invited him here.

But she can't sleep in her comfortable bed. Tosses and turns, twitchy and failing to find rest. Frustrated with herself, how she just wants forget all they've done, all they've said and pad out there and join him. His warm skin on hers beckoning, those arms, bulky and safe, waiting for her. Wants to have him pull her in tight and let his hands travel. The thing with the water, just a beginning, just a little taste and it has her restless and fidgety. Finally she swings her legs off the bed. Prepared to just stomp out there and get it over with. But as her feet hit the cold tile floor, echoes of what he'd said in the kitchen come back.

_He left her._ He chickened out and left her.

...

She is up far too early, impossible to lie in bed with him just a few strides away. She paces around the house, cleaning up the non-existent mess. Trying to decide what to do next. The thought of him out there under the first sweet rays of the Moluccan sun, highly unsettling.

She draws a large t-shirt over her head and pads through the house. She tries to open the door to the porch silently. Tells herself, she just wants to look at him, make sure it's not one of her fretful dreams. It's barely dawn and the light is a soft apricot.

She remains in the doorway for a while. Wants to see if he wakes up, but when he doesn't, she eases closer. _James. Her James. _Like a painting, the outline of him filtered through the mosquito netting.

And somehow, the anger of yesterday has mellowed during the night. It almost seems ridiculous now, when he lies like this, exposed. Different in sleep, artless and simple, no sly arrogance, no pretence. His eyelashes, shading his cheekbones. Little boy lost. His brow, smooth and untroubled in sleep, it awakens a fierce protectiveness she connects with Aaron. That mixture of masculinity and fragile insecurity.

Not sure what she's doing, or why, but she lifts the edge of the net up and sneaks under. The rickety bamboo daybed complains under her weight, but he doesn't stir. She sits there with her hands on her lap staring at him. Unsure of what she wants to happen next. And he might be a first class asshole, but no one can say the man is hard on the eyes.

Like cut from the tacky cover of a romance novel, one of those cheap saucy ones. His shoulders and bare arms relaxed, a bronzed glossy bulkiness. The muscles and those angular lines bringing her gaze down. Hitching on the edge of his white boxers. The thin cotton fabric quite insufficient, making him seem just barely decent. It might be shallow and superficial to sit here and drool over him. He's so much more than a beautiful body. Still, she can't help resenting the boxers, interfering with all that tanned skin, blocking the view.

The netting moving in a gust of wind blowing in from the ocean, balmy and salty. A powerful rush of love for the man reclined like a big lazy cat in the morning sun. The way he looks, head thrown back. And she doesn't want him to leave. All this time wasted, missing him, hating him. Something awakening within her, hunkered down there next to the daybed, her feet a little cold against the bare tiles.

Needs to touch him. Wants to wake him up. Tell him that she doesn't care anymore. Doesn't care why he left, where he's been or what he's done. All that matters is that he's here. Right now. Stretched out unguarded, in that touchingly trusting position. One arm thrown above his head, the other by his side. Not as tough, not as hard as he likes to think. There is love to be found here, maybe forgiveness too.

Her fingers gingerly reaching out for him, pursuing the dips and curves of his upper arm. The bulky strength of him. How a man like this can be so weak, so fragile, she can't understand. How muscles and sinew and bones can make perfection. A slightly angular shape to him, tapering out in a fine wrist, flaring out at the hands.

The opulent luxury of him. Tiny soft hairs on his lower arms catching the sunlight, a golden that shimmers against his caramel skin. Singed off near his right hand, courtesy of the kettle fire, and angry red spot on the side of his thumb. She touches that too, delicately. The wounds he carries, they are not all visible. Just like hers.

His fingers spread as if ready to grip onto the bed underneath him. Suddenly wants to see him do exactly that, clasp onto that mattress. Wants to see him gasp open-mouthed, lines softened, eyes dimmed, his chest rising and falling.

She trickles her fingers down his wrist, letting her knuckles brush his thigh. Stops to listen to him respiring, steadily. In, out, life palpitating, flowing though him. A source of energy that she wants to absorb. A glance at his chest, the soft hills and valleys, his heartbeat clearly visible at the base of his neck. The warm glow across convex spheres, coppery shadows at the depths, outlining muscles. But physical strength means nothing when he lies like this, unshielded, lips parted. Wants to give him something to moan about. Wake him up to this new day, where she is brave and does things he never asked for, never expected. Never demanded.

She leans down next to him, slowly, slowly. Bends her neck to draw her lips over his knuckles. Expecting him to wake up, but he doesn't move a hair. Just keeps breathing, calmly. In. Out. Lying here defenceless.

His tanned skin, like freshly baked bread disappearing down those boxers. She wants to taste him, take him in. Wants to straddle him, glide up and down his length, slick and eager. _Wake up_, she wills him but he sleeps on.

Her lips sail by his breast bone. Downwards, traversing across his midriff, the planes of his abdomen, pecan pie and smooth toffee. Hands making headway. He groans, a little sleepy, muffled sound as she reaches the trail of dark blonde hair starting below the navel. _Now_. He must wake up now, must feel this. But his eyes remain shut, not even a flutter of lashes betraying him.

She's never tasted him before, not down there. And he, being who he is, has never asked her to. He must have known, like he knows every other sordid detail about her, the associations too dark, too painful. But there in the bashful sunlight something changes within her.

She doesn't want to be that person no more.

Wants to rewrite what was once degrading, disgusting and shameful. Wants to take him, his beauty, his clumsy love and erase what was soiled by another. Someone not like him at all. A determination not to allow herself to be under that shadow no more. How she crawls out from underneath that rock, and how bright it is out here. Wondering why she stayed so long in the darkness.

Wants to be like him, to give freely, carelessly, lavishly. Wants to conquer that part and make it. Something beautiful.

This, him at his most vulnerable, something to delight in, something precious. One hand following the string of hairs, a little coarse under her fingertips. Hoping he'll wake up soon. Hoping he'll stay asleep. Self conscious, not sure she can follow through.

But there are no demons, no ugly whispers in her head when she pushes the waistband of his boxers a little south. Wants to look at him, undisturbed. It's not difficult, the fabric already half bunched down over his hipbones. His dick, resting between his thighs, the skin there a softer version of cream. And when she dares run her palm over him, he's warm and smooth, like a polished stone in sunlight. The hair, like everything about him a healthy golden walnut brown. Darker than on his head.

She's seen him in the buff before, _aplenty_, strutting by, showing off. But never like this, not completely free to study him, not without having to deflect his smug commentary. Snoozing away, dreaming of God knows what. Knows he'd puff out his chest, would grin and say something cheesy if he were awake now. And he's probably like most men. Nothing remarkable about him, nothing to complain about either but she is surprised to find him beautiful, just mouth-wateringly perfect like this.

If he's pretending to be asleep, that's just fine by her. Fingers itch to wrap around his length, to touch him, explore him. Uninterrupted.

She kisses a careful path down his underbelly while sniffing his skin, drawing in deeply. He smells of musk and spice, doesn't disappoint. Nutmeg with clean undertones of soap, something innocently stirring about the image of him in the shower, working up a sudsy lather around his privates. How he's particular about his hygiene though he pretends he doesn't care. The manicured fingers, soft corners on his nails.

Her hand in a timid caress on his upper thigh while her lips sweep downwards and she can see it now. A little ripple across his abdomen, how blood rushes to the area. Maybe he's awake now. Maybe not. The erection happening right in front of her, how the girth expands, the head striving upwards. Lets her hand nestle near his groin, making little circles with her fingertips but she feels a little lost. Something overpoweringly manly about this, and as he hardens she can't help feeling intimidated. He must have had so many women. Imagines them all, uninhibited, sensual and physical. And then her, with her crappy frame of reference. Her hang-ups, her erratic sexuality.

Has no idea how he wants it, how he likes it. Hard or soft, roughly or gently. Tries soft teasing strokes working her way down his underbelly with her mouth at the same time as her hand canters down, pushing the boxers out of her way completely. And maybe he lifts his hips a mere millimetre, she doesn't want to stop and think.

Glances up at him and she can swear he's holding his breath. The way his ribcage is inflated and the stomach sucked in. But his face remains the same, in absolute peace.

He tastes exactly like he should.

A tang of freshly cut grass, a little salty. Fascinated by how he grows visibly thicker, pink and glossy from her mouth. Her fingers encircling the base, teasing, surfing, riding along. Ventures on, feeling more brazen as he stiffens.

He's awake.

She knows it. The '_mmmf_' escaping him, unmistakable. And when she looks up at his face again, her lips still around the swollen tip, she can see the smile he's obviously trying to suppress. Finds to her surprise that she feels no shame.

_None._

Nothing degrading in this, nothing dirty in making him smile like that, in bringing him on in the same way he always does her. Although admittedly, she, with a lot less skill and finesse than him.

But he doesn't seem to mind. Stretches out lazily, making himself comfortable, the beginnings of dimples barely visible. Relishing in the newness of it all. Eyebrows high above the closed lids, a little surprised – faking sleep badly. Tongue gliding around him, glossing over him and that's when he moves a hand to her face, touching her cheek.

"You ain't got to do that Freckles..."

But she wants to see the man powerless, letting go, always in control, one step ahead. He twitches, clumsily pushing the hair out of her face. Maybe trying to bring her back up.

"Hey..." But she wants to be the one who makes him vibrate and tremble. "Come on up here... or I might not... last."

His hips jerk once, an involuntary movement. She can tell, he's trying to hold back. Her hand reaching upwards in blind, finding his fingers, interweaving them in between hers. A hard grip when she takes him again.

"I ain't... _oh_ fuck it." Hoists her up abruptly and at the very moment her stomach lands on his, she feels the spasms, and the warm liquid against her thighs.

She lifts herself up, braced by her arms. Staring down at him, where he lies with his eyes shut and a big smile on his face. He puts one of those large palms around the back of her neck, fingers splayed up in under her hair. Thinks he might kiss her, make it alright. Tell her that he loves her. But he doesn't. Just like that the smile dissolves. His eyelids flick open, and he stares at her mutely beseeching her, pleading for something else, something more. She doesn't know what.

Only knows that he looks - _lost._

A tiny wrinkle between his brows. And it feels wrong. A mistake. This. Shouldn't have gone there. She doesn't even understand why he's come. Except maybe to make sure she doesn't move on, that she hasn't hooked up with Jack again, her eternal consolation price.

He can't move on so he won't let her either. _You can't help who you love._ The only thing her mother ever said that makes any sense.

Wants to erase this morning. Wind it back and change ever taking this step. Not the right thing. Not what she needs, what he needs. Wrong, _all wrong._

...

_Mercy._ The wonders never cease. Woken up like that at crack of dawn. And if this isn't heaven he doesn't know what is.

Going from dreaming something pleasurable for sure to eyelids flicking open in the morning rays. Her dark hair spread over his thighs, her mouth molded around him. Has never asked for this and it's the more fucking unbelievable because he wasn't expecting it. Wakes him up with a blow job, sweetness personified. Sugarplum with frosting on top.

Forgiveness? Absolution?

She hovers over him, dressed in a white baggy t-shirt, cute as a goddamn bug with her bed-head and sleepy face. Her breasts heavy and succulent under the fabric and he's just about to wrangle her out of that stupid t-shirt when he makes the mistake of looking into her eyes. They are dark and cautious, not at all in a frolicking mood. Still in combat mode then.

The back of her hand wiped across her lips as she sits up properly, straddling his legs. And it strikes him as an incredibly rude thing to do, at least in his own well-tested codex of sexual conduct. As if she wants to eliminate the taste of him.

_Hell_, it's not as if he asked for any of it.

"What's this?" He frowns at her, trying to connect but he can see her pulling away, just like that. Retreating, scrambling, trying to squirrel away some last scrap of dignity. "What's going on Kate? What... What are we doing?"

Is he forgiven? Is that what this is? But the way a shadow of shame floats over her face, he really doesn't think so. Lets her eyelashes shadow her vision, not allowing him access. He tries to grab onto her hips, but she slaps his hands away. Wants to say; _don't_. Don't pull back. Come closer instead. Talk.

"Hey, say something for God's sake." _Are they or aren't they?_

"It… I don't know."

She turns her eyes up and makes a childish face, mouth curving downwards at the corners. Embarrassed. And it blows him away, and not in a good way. The inadequacy of her, the lack of emotional maturity. She is a kid who has never evolved. She can go down on him, but she can't tell him how she feels. The fury is back, Without warning. So much time wasted – so much energy spent on this bullshit.

"You gonna' hem and haw some more? You could at least tell me what the _fuck_ this means, pardon my French. For us."

And she ricochets off the daybed, as if it is burning her skin. As if he's dreamt it all up. He can't help it, the going down on him is so out of the blue, it makes him uneasy. He's got no idea what that was about. Comparable to that last pity-fuck in Yogyakarta before she'd dumped him. _Nope Buddy_, won't take you back but will certainly blow you.

"You can't just reject someone one day and blow him the next, Freckles. It just don't jive."

She tugs her t-shirt down over her round little ass, indignant. And she might have just made him climax but he feels no satisfaction whatsoever, not sexually and not in and other damn way.

Her legs pale cream, bare and velvety disappearing under the hem. She looks over her shoulder as if someone is standing there – probably just to avoid looking at him. Her thumb shoots up to her mouth, automatically chewing on that nail. Nervous like a whore in church.

"We're even," she says quietly, standing in the doorway into the house but it sure doesn't feel like they are. Her cheeks cadmium red and he wants to scream at her.

"Like _hell_, we're even, Freckles."

"Take your bag and leave." Her face grows hard, amazing how she can do that with what she has to work with. Those soft curves, the cheeks and their childish roundness, how they can turn flint-hard and hostile at the flick of a hand. She points at the duffel bag by the door. Must have lugged it out there while he was asleep.

Him and her, speaking like grown ups. When pigs fly. A hopeless idea.

"Ain't no boat to the mainland until this afternoon." She looks everywhere but at him, chewing on her bottom lip as if she's hoping it'll come loose. Thumb still pressed to the corner of her mouth, like a little sulking child. "Looks like you're stuck with me today."

"You'll be on that ferry, if it means I have to carry you on board."

He chooses not to listen to that. Stretches his arms above his head, yawning loudly. An attempt to shield himself from the humiliation. The vague sense of having been used, of being discarded. And only she, only Kate could do that, contaminate the weird innocence that the two of them have always had together.

" So... Sweet-pea, what are we up to today? " Pretends that it matters none to him. Relieved to have a few more hours. To do what, he has no idea. He'll think of something.

She surveys him as if he's the lowest kind of scum on earth.

"You're not setting one manipulative foot in the house." Sneering like a little meerkat and all he can think is that it's too damn early for warfare.

"Hey, hang on a sec. I've got something for you." An impulse, not planned. Desperate, but he's running out of options.

…

He hunkers down by his bag, fishing for something. She tries not to look at the way muscles dip along the ridge of his spine. Can't believe he'd just show up like this. She's had just about time to get over the most acute pain of losing him and here he is again, poking at the scab of her wound. Her red inflamed anger flaring, a sharp smarting ache somewhere in her chest.

"Catch!"

Chucks something to her and she snags it, a one handed save – instincts ruling movements. He slips right by her, bumping into her shoulder. Into the house, blatantly ignoring her no indoor's rule. Admittedly it wasn't exactly well thought through. Unless she wants him squatting in the bushes, she has to let him use the bathroom.

"What the… what's this?" she shouts after him.

A sock. His cheap sock. Dark grey, rolled up into a ball. She stares down at it, can't think anything else than that he has lost it completely.

_Sock? _First her underwear, now a sock. What's next? A bra? A hat or a scarf?

Passes the little bundle from hand to hand, watching the door, waiting for him to come back outside. Her fingers pinched around it, preparing to throw it right back at him when she feels something. Small. Hard. Shaped like a circle. Her stomach sinking as she realizes what it is. A ring. Some tacky tasteless thing, no doubt.

That's what he thinks it's going to take. _A stupid ring_. Never mind that he'd skipped on her. Just left her to deal with everything. His pitiful excuse, the money, claiming to want to provide for her. She stands there on the middle of the porch holding a rolled-up sock wondering in what fucked-up part of Sawyer's universe would a ring fit in. _Now. _

Comes swaggering out again, broad and cocky. Naked spare his boxers, carrying that old cassette player. He must have been in her bedroom closet snooping around. Nosy bastard.

"Hey, look who's got a sentimental streak. You brought the old thing with you."

"Put it back, James." He just smiles, fiddling with the buttons.

"Reckon it's still working? You've been changing the batteries Freckles?" Puts it down by his feet and sure enough, within seconds Ray Charles is crooning his old heart out on the shabby little porch.

Stretches his arms up above his head, hands fastened behind his skull as if he's doing some kind of warm-up exercise. Her eyes inevitably wandering down, cheeks heating up instantly. Surreal that she just did, _that_. To him. He smirks, as if he can read her mind, tongue in cheek.

"Come on baby, what harm could it do? One little dance..."

Puts on that mellow twang and she doesn't know where to look. Reminds herself that it's all fake, just another corny move he's got.

'_I'm gonna' love you, like nobody's loved you_

_Come rain or come shine_

_High as a mountain, deep as a river_

_Come rain or come shine.'_

A load of crap, that's what it is. Ray Charles is just as full of it as _he_ is. She leans down to press the off button. Gives the stupid cassette deck a little kick for good measure before she stretches the balled-up sock out towards him.

"James…?"

And he, all cool ease, chest puffed out, but there is no mistaking the shifty eyes, cagily awaiting her reaction.

"Pumpkin?" His low baritone, how he can impart so much in one word. Strangely wired and jittery at the same time, a fake smile plastered across his face. Lips curved and all muscles collaborating in a concocted show of confidence.

"What's this?"

"Did you open it?" Something about the anxious excitement scares her. As if he's presented her with a big gift-wrapped box.

She shakes her head, her hand feeling cold as if she's holding onto a block of ice.

"Well are ya' gonna'?"

"Is this some kind of joke? I ask you to leave and you give me some... some -"

The smile disappears, the upper lip twitching, nerves getting to him. Doing that thing where he bites his cheeks together and turns all gruff. Disappointed. And just like that, he rips the sock away from her.

"Gimme' here." Amazed at how a person claiming to be a rather successful conman can be so unsmooth, so un-suave.

"You think _that_ will make it all better?"

"Just forget it, alright!" That hangdog expression, making him look like an upset little boy instead of a man. _Hurt._ And she wants to reach for him, cradle his head in her arms. He's stiff as a board. Arms hanging at his sides, that stupid sock clasped in his left hand by his thigh.

"You think _that's_ what I need from you?"

He doesn't answer so she snatches it back from him. His eyes hot and wanting on her skin, while her fingers dredges the toe of the sock. Expecting a big gaudy thing with fake, big-ass diamonds. That would be just like him. Presented in an old grubby sock.

_But it's nothing like that. _

Just a gold band. Like the one he bought her back then, that fake one, but bigger – much too large for her. Gold plate peeling off, revealing plain metal or plastic. Not a tacky engagement ring bought with money he can't afford to spend.

_His ring._

Wants to ask him what it means. If anything? Why is he showing her his old ring, the symbol of all things fake? It's not as if the whole bogus marriage thing worked out all that well.

"You kept your ring...?" Slips it on her thumb and drops the sock on the floor. "I lost mine... when Dewi..."

"Yeah, you know... you told me at the clinic and I thought... " Takes her hand and drags it up towards his own face, palm open pulling it across his forehead over his eyes, letting it slide down. And she doesn't know what it means, what he's trying to say. Warm air from his nose against the inside of her fingers, her hand. "Come here, let's..."

She yanks away from him. Has a vague memory of rambling about it during her freak-out fest before the ultrasound. Next he'll find her a replacement for Aaron's old blanket. Doesn't understand what he's trying to prove.

"I don't have time for this. I have errands to run... I've got to - " She pulls the ring off, tosses it on the daybed.

He looks from her to the bed and then back again. And she can see how he tries to pull it together, tries to gather himself up. Pretends that it matters none to him.

"Great, then I'll just tag along... check out the sights."

He bends down to collect his damp jeans from the floor, emotions stowed away. And the ring just lies there glittering in the sun, glaring in all its phoniness. About as significant and meaningful as a bottle of snake oil.

She leaves him there, stumbling, trying to look slick and unperturbed as he fumbles with his denims. She hurries inside to throw on some clothes. Feels bloated and ugly. Chooses a wide white tunic that reaches her to her knees, and a pair of simple grey cotton trousers, almost pajama style. Elastic at the waist that she can push beneath her waist. Ties her hair back in a severe ponytail. Just because she knows he hates it like that.

...

She trudges on refusing to acknowledge him. But he trails after her like an unwanted appendix. Not a word wasted between them, the entire way down to the village.

He can't help smiling, the way she deals with those fishermen. She can't master more than three words of their language, and still their teeth glimmer, they nod enthusiastically and small wad of cash is exchanged for a large basket of crabs. She turns on her heels, head held high, still pretending he doesn't lumber on behind her like a great ugly shadow.

And he could have had this. If he weren't such a moron. He could have had all of this with her. A simple little life in a village at the end of the world. Could have fallen asleep, all wrapped up in her. Every night.

Wonders who is footing the bill. Pretty sure it's Jack, and though he ought to appreciate it, he doesn't. _Should have been him_. He should have made something out of himself. He's not a complete bonehead, could have gone to college and gotten a degree. He's pushing forty and so far, every frigging second of it, has been wasted.

He tries to take the basket but she dodges him and breezes on ahead. Doesn't need him.

"I get it Freckles, want to paddle your own canoe and all that. But hell. You're splitting at the seams."

"I'm fine."

And it doesn't sit well with him. Pregnant woman, carrying a big fat load, just because her baby-daddy is as useless as a washed-up jellyfish. She stops to buy what looks like mango and red chilli from a street-side vendor. Some old woman, just a bag of bones with hard black eyes. Regards him as if he is scum of the earth.

All the way back up the hill, she struggles, lugging the basket alone. But not once does she put it down.

And not once does she turn to look at him.

...

Behind the house there is a crudely constructed fireplace, made of bricks and a metal grid. She crouches down and with the help of a few twigs and a pack of matches, and soon has a fire going. Places the crabs on top of the grid, on rows, five by four. He wonders who the hell she's cooking for. It sure isn't for his benefit. Hasn't so much as offered him a cup of coffee all day. Come to think of it, hasn't seen her eating either and it worries him.

Eating for two and all that.

Her spine visible beneath the tunic as she pokes with a metal bar at the fire. That stupid ponytail irking him, wants to pull her hair lose. Wants to make up, make good. Must reach out, find a way through. Discover that soft sad girl underneath the hard shell.

"Hey Freckles, you gonna' ignore me all day?"

The sky is rumbling, darkening at the edges. An approaching rainstorm waiting to roll in from the sea. As if it's announcing the end of them. A looming sorrow, imminent heartbreak, sure to come, no matter how he fights it.

"Yup. That was the plan." He feels himself drowning, slipping under the surface. Clawing for the life buoy that she won't throw to him. Just calmly watching him go under.

He sits down on his haunches, right next to her, deliberately invading her space. She pays no heed, her profile frosty as if he is nobody to her. On an impulse he reaches forward and pulls at the rubber band holding her hair back, making it snap against her scalp. Her hand flying up to the sore spot.

"Ouch! What are you doing?" Looks like she is about to beat him with that iron rod and that might at lease provide a suitable ending to their half-assed, feeble attempt at getting it together.

'I don't know, Kate. What are _we_ doing?"

He snags his fingers in the messy waves trying to make her look at him but she pulls away. Shoots up, wiping her hands on her tunic, her shoulders tense and hunched up by her ears. He's hot on her heels, following her into the house. Bustling along into the little kitchen, banging with cupboards, pots and plates. Purposely making a racket. Takes a metal tray and two wooden sticks, returning to the crabs out in the back.

Uses the twigs like enormous chopsticks, deftly picking the crabs off the fire and placing them on the tray. Tackles his shoulder as she passes him, too close, or he might have leaned out to make sure it happened. He's getting mighty fed up with the cold treatment from her. A darkness growing within, mimicking the growling thunder crawling over the horizon.

"Hey Freckles, how long are you gonna' pretend deaf and dumb?"

Can't help the augmenting frustration when she simply shrugs. Effectively snubbing him. She hurries on by, stone-faced, lips pressed together. She places the tray of crabs on the porch, in the shade, the fragrance of grilled seafood making his stomach turn. She covers them up with a newspaper while wiping sweat off her brow.

He's a bag of nerves. Needs to do something with his hands. He picks up a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tears it open using his teeth, spitting out a piece of paper. Sticks one between his lips and fumbles in his pocket for a lighter. That quitting smoking deal hadn't really panned out all that well while apart from her.

"So we ain't gonna' talk at all now?"

Her calm disintegrates as she turns with those giant chopsticks in her hand, looking like she might want to poke his eyes out. The pressure of humid angry air around them pushing them down, hovering above their heads, making frail nerves snap.

"You want to talk! Just talk then, _Sawyer_! Talk!"

Not James. _Sawyer._ Sawyer, the shithead who has made pulp out of her heart more than once. Talk. He doesn't know what to say now. There is so much to say, and such a dismal lack of courage.

"Well... you ain't said nothing about the goddamn ring yet?" he mutters and he can't believe what a pathetic sucker he has become. Stops fiddling for the light, peering at her. The cigarette remaining unlit in his mouth.

"What _about _your stupid ring?"

Just relaxes his lips and lets the cigarette fall. Doesn't feel like smoking. This wretched inability to connect.

"Well... It was a fucking _ring_ for Pete's sake." Tongue-tied and maybe it's better, he doesn't know what he wants her to say. Cold feet, before the avalanche has even hit him.

"And so? It didn't mean anything _then_, and it sure doesn't mean anything now."

He averts his eyes, feeling like a fool. Although he started it, he's ill prepared for this conversation. The stakes staggering and he doesn't realize what he has put on the table before it's too late. Too great a gamble and he's too weak.

"It _means _something alright... and you know it. " Ends up sounding like a truculent little boy arguing some meaningless little point.

"What! What the hell can it possibly mean?"

"Least you could do is answer! That was a fucking _proposal,_ you Dumbass -"

Might as well have tasered her. The silence, you could hear a pin drop. Eyes round and somewhere in between pissed and stunned, until she finds herself.

"Can't have been a very good one if I didn't understand that." Prissy little jerk of her chin. So that's the way she's going to play it. Arranging her face in an expressionless mask, hands on her hips. Those beautiful hips. He can't talk no more, wants the physical to do the work for them. They were never good at this, and maybe it's his fault. Perhaps he never tried hard enough.

"Well sorry if I ain't Doctor _frigging_ Perfect, bet he had the perfect fucking proposal."

What made her say yes to him? Other than that the man was actually able to offer her a future. Watches her tuck her bottom lip in between her teeth before she answers.

"Hard to say when you didn't even have the guts to ask."

"This is _me _asking Sweetcheeks. I deserve a fucking answer. That's the least." Tired of peeling back layer after layer with her and getting nowhere. Four years' worth of frustrations that have been denied, pushed back.

_Damn her._

"No."

"_No_, huh? That's it? That's all I get? No. Two measly little letters, no explanation? After all the shit we've been through. _No?_"

"Yeah, that's all you get." Her eyes implore him. _Stop it_, begging him to cut it out. But he can't. He's lit the fuse and it has to run. "I told you; I want you out of here."

"Yeah, yeah you _did_... " He crosses his arms over his chest, pleased at the flush of blood to her face. Like she's been caught shoplifting. "But that was before I woke up with your mouth around my privates."

His crudeness awakens a glossy white anger. She bursts, hurls the sticks against the wall.

"That's it! Get out!"

Hoists his bag up, thrusting it in his arms like an unwanted baby.

"I will as soon as you tell me what the fuck _that_ was about..."

She tugs at his sleeve while he plants his feet for maximum resistance. Digging his heels in, straining against her, letting her work for it.

"_Nothing._ It didn't mean anything, alright! Just like your idiotic ring!"

And she's harsh, the way she struggles to evict him. Gathering steam, and she doesn't spare on the abuse, actually kicking his calf , trying to make him move down the steps. _She's really throwing him out_. And because he has zero pride, zilch sense of self preservation he pushes on.

"It sure didn't feel like _'nothing'_, Freckles. It felt like a whole lot." She starts jostling him onwards, using her strong little body to propel him forward. "You're still in love with me, ain't you?

"It was _sex_, Sawyer. _This_, you and me. That's all we are. _Sex._"

He feels sick when her words seep in. She must be lying. Because that's what they are, all they are - his chest sure as hell wouldn't ache so damn much. The battleship grey of the sky swooping down, swallowing him up, smothering all sense of who he is and the crazy reasons he had for coming here.

"I've had '_just sex'_. In fact I've had plenty of 'just sex'." The wind lifting her hair up around her head, dark chocolate against the murky blackened clouds. And if she weren't so alarmed she surely would have rolled her eyes, at that. "I _know_ what sex feels like and it sure as hell ain't nothing like what we have."

"That's because we have _nothing_. Nothing!" Says it with such an unwavering conviction, it makes him want to take a swipe at her. "It's too late, James."

Her bottomless sadness cripples him. The enemy is too great, too well armed. He can't beat this. Can't crush his way through. He's failed, screwed it all up.

Not smart enough, not sensitive enough. Or maybe she just doesn't love him enough. As if she speaks a language he doesn't. Sending vague smoke signals, too easy to misinterpret. War or a peace negotiation, _hell_, he doesn't even know where he's going with this before the battle is in full swing. An incalculable sequence of cause and effect. How the hell did he end up here?

"You hurt me."

The roll of thunder a perfect music to their raised desperate voices. The ground slippery and he glides a bit before managing to stand up straight. He'd expected this, the fighting and shouting. He'd counted on it when he came here. Still, he'd anticipated it leading somewhere. He'd hoped to break through to her. A fight that would end in her arms, in her bed.

"Well, you've hurt me too, goddamnit! So I guess _that_ makes us even."

"I can't do this anymore."

He's circling the drain. This isn't how this was supposed to end.

"Do what? What are you so fucking scared of?"

"Oh I don't know! Maybe that I'll fall for any of that bullshit you sprinkle around like angel dust. _Trust me! Just take me!_" Imitating him, her face turned into a hideous sneer and he wonders if he really looks like that. Bet he does. "Is this how it's going to be Sawyer? You look me up every time you start feeling a little lonely?"

"Maybe. Let's face it, I've always played for keeps but you ain't never been sure you want me around!"

The colour washes from her face, but she keeps her act up.

"No? I'm becoming a whole lot surer by the second."

"I was what Kate? Pot-luck? Just happened to be available."

And as if the higher powers sense that a more dramatic backdrop is required for this last effort to annihilate one another, the rain starts falling. Right then. Large oily drops hitting the crown of his head. Picking up speed immediately. Like turning on a shower.

As if they weren't miserable enough already.

...

_To be continued... _

Will post the next part in a few days. Hope you don't choke (retch) on all the drama, smut and violence condensed into this chapter. I know there's far too much arguing for one sit-down, but I figured they have a lot to fight about. Same thing with the smut, they really had it coming.

_Thanks for still reading and please leave a review, let me know what you think. They are food for the soul. Really._


	42. No other

_THANK YOU-THANK YOU so much for the reviews and the responses to the first installment._

_Really, really hope you will like the remaining. It's later than I had promised. I began to hack away at it a before posting and I could probably keep nitpicking on it for another four weeks – but I'm not going to because it's driving me around the bend. So here goes - last one. Picking up where we left it._

_Warning: Rated M ( NC17) for mature content, language, sex, violence. (Better skip the whole chapter if that's not your thing)_

_Disclaimer: Not mine. Not really._

_Much love to the fabulous Matt Wertz for providing background music while this last chapter was penned (though not in person - darnit). – I'm outrageously infatuated__**...**_

**...**

**No other**

**...**

The sky opens up above them. A higher power's vain attempt at cooling their scalding temper down a notch. Water pouring down his neck, chilly streams gushing down his back and it does absolutely nothing to pacify the soaring rage. The terrifying realization that there might not be a way back for them.

"You're a _fucking_ wuss, Kate. You ain't a woman, you're a scared, half-grown little pussycat! A whole lot of scratching and biting, but nothing to it!"

"Oh, _I'm _the wuss Sawyer!" She shoots her chin out, wiping away water from her face, actually managing to look like a rebellious kitten. Teeth set in a growl as she braces herself to have another go, leaning her entire weight against him to make him budge. " I didn't _bail_ when it counted. _You_ did!"

"No, and what a bloody novelty that is!" Releases him to take aim, a ferocious push at the small of his back making him lurch over.

"Get a move on!"

The enormous exertion she puts into trying to expel him and he does a pretty good impersonation of a stubborn donkey. Him and her, like a three-ring circus, making a mockery of what they had. Shredding, tearing apart what they could have been. Had she been a little braver, a little stronger and he a little kinder, a little more patient.

A little less lost.

"I ain't the one who ran in the first place!" His wretched braying, trying to burrow hoofs into the ground. Her feet in rubber sandals, slipping in the slush. "We could have been -"

Cuts him off with a fierce thrust.

"Could have been _'what'_, you sonofabitch?" Spitting and hissing, not at all unlike a little cat, or at the most a tiger cub, throwing a fit.

He twists away, won't let her get rid of him that easily. Her face almost grey in this light, like the underside of a fish. Can't she feel how he loves her? _Can't she see it? _Though right now, he hates her too. Hates the eternal evasion, the refusing to take a step closer. There is no forgiveness, no mercy to be had. Once you fault her, she drops you like a hot potato. No second chances.

"We could have _been_ something, _goddammit_."

She blinks away water, just glaring at him, giving him another hard shove. Unbendable, unrelenting. The wall stays up. And why the hell not? Nothing is different. Doesn't know why he even bothers.

"Talk to me for fuck's sake! You owe me that much." Wants to roar and shout and scream at her, so he does. Wants her to see him. _Feel him. _Seizes hold of her arms, trying to keep her away from him. In place. Can feel the knotty power, the stubborn lean muscles under the wet tunic. "Look, I'm piss-tired of being jerked around. - For once, just give it to me straight! Just talk to me, _goddamnit!_

She twists her whole upper body out of his clasp. And nothing can be as cruel as her silence. _Nothing. _Just staring at him as if he's the one who's got his head screwed on wrong, lips pressed so firmly together, they appear white, sending him push after push. Driving him away from her house. The agitation sweeping him up with an alarming velocity. Should hang onto something, needs to anchor himself but nothing is steady, nothing safe.

"Why the hell won't you let me in? - What the _fuck_ makes it so impossible?" _To love him? _What he always thinks but can never say. Wonders if she hears the echo of it anyway. The mark of the unlovable, she wears it too, branded across her forehead. Can't ever wash it away. It's in the shifty, suspicious eyes, how she always questions every word, every gesture. Looks for a betrayal in every act of kindness.

She takes aim, head bent down, like a young buck, trying to butt him. And he barely makes it out of her way. A bawdy brawl. Hurley-boy must be spinning in his watery grave. After all he did for them, propping them up, helping them along. This is how they deal, all amped up on adrenaline. All messy sentiments, no common sense.

"Really Sawyer, you want it _straight_?" Jerking her head back as she thrusts her hands out against him again. The long wet hair, like a million sad, starved snakes. _Medusa. And_ she can turn him into stone with a stare too.

"Christ, Kate! What's your problem?" He swings his bag, not on purpose but he bumps into her knee so that she buckles. Gets up instantly. No time lost, furiously wiping water and strings of her hair out of her face.

"_You!_ You make it impossible!" Snarls at him like a predator, making him stagger back. "I _came_ back, remember. And you were with _her_! I tell you I want you and you're off like a shot! So you tell me, James... who is the wuss? - Who!"

She hurls herself against him again, an unyielding shoulder hitting his torso. They must look pretty darn funny. Her, small and dainty, trying to oust him, the giant ass. Like David and Goliath, the tragic-comical slapstick version. She would roll him down the hill like a boulder if she could.

"And so _what_, Kate? Same goddamn difference! You ain't _ever_ come back for _me!_ Not on the island, not here, not any-fucking-where." And though he knows he's at fault too, he'll be damned if he'll let her place all the blame on him. "You went back for Jack, you came scurrying back for Claire, and you would have gone after Aaron if Hurley-boy hadn't locked you into that damn cabin with me. But you ain't ever come looking for _me_."

"That's different!"

"No. That's about sizes it up, Honey."

The oppressive led-grey around them, sucking up all hope. Trees swaying in the strong wind, branches whipping against each other. Maybe she's right. Maybe it _is_ too late for them. Her face distorted, trying to find an escape, looking around the clearing. Searching for a weapon, a way out – anything.

"You didn't seem all that happy when we came back for you on the island, James."

"'_We' _came back. Not you. And no, I _wasn't _happy. I had finally moved on and then you come waltzing back and just like that, everything goes belly up again."

A flashback of how she'd sneaked into his tent. Never staying the night. Looking guilty as hell when she left. And the old wounds they open up just like that. Split wide open and ugly. The never choosing him.

"You had moved on with _her_."

It's a can of worms, he knows that and he blows it right open.

"And so-fucking-what? You ain't never laid your claim on me. It would have taken next to nothing, Kate... you know that. And I asked you to stay for fuck's sake... And _you, _you fed me some bullcrap about 'playing house'. You wouldn't even give me a goddamn chance."

"Didn't take you all that long to find someone else to play with."

She dares stand there, glowering at _him_. And he sees red, it's all system go. _Damn her_. A chill sliding down his spine with the insight that he's this close to hitting her. This is who he is. Just a branch off the old homicidal apple tree.

"Right back at ya'! And it's not like you ever gave a flying fuck. Only _one_ thing you ever wanted from me! Trailing Doc around all day long, all goo-goo eyed and primpety-prim like a good girl. Come sundown - _you'd_ be riding the cowboy, hot, hard and sweaty, pretending not to know me from Adam the next morning!"

The words, sordid and cruel. Doesn't know what fucked-up corner of his brain they come from, only that they need to see the light of day. Demeaning to be that man. That admiration, the stupid puppy-love for Doc, her wanting so desperately to match up. And he'd have given anything to be on the receiving end of that awestruck gaze she'd reserved for Jack.

"Shut the hell up, James!"

Sidesteps another livid attack so that she glides just right by him. Damn, she won't let up. But for every opportunity he has, he moves a little closer back to the porch, thwarting her efforts. Wants to poke his tongue at her. He won't make it easy on her.

"What chaps your ass is that someone like _her _wanted me, when I wasn't good enough for you_…_ Made you doubt your own choice, didn't it?"

"No –"

Sees how her face is drained of colour. And he's in a tailspin, he'll crash soon. Glowing hot anger behind his eyes that makes him want to be mean and vulgar. Pours some more fuel on the fire, a big old jerry can of it. _Just because_.

"Did you pretend he was _me_? Did you use to squeeze your eyes shut, and imagine you were with old Billy Bob instead of the fancy surgeon, Kate?"

A frantic satisfaction standing there in the middle of the clearing screaming at each other. Water and red soil making little rivers around their feet pushing on down the hill.

"Don't –"

"I come here, finally _get_ you... and think it means something... But hey, whaddaya' know? –You screw me over _yet_ another time, running off in the middle of the night! No big, frigging surprise there, Kate."

She hooks onto his belt, both hands, one on each side of the buckle, grinding her teeth, straining, towing him towards the little dirt road. Giving it her all, just to bring him a few inches away from her stupid house. Ludicrously serious about it and all the while scrabbling to find her feet on the slippery surface.

"I had to leave you! Don't you get that? I had to!"

Wants to cuff her over the skull, she's so dumb. How can she not feel it? How he is meaningless without her, the bed too big, his skin too naked. A fundamental loneliness that refuses to be soothed, won't be mollified by any other hands but hers.

"Well, that's some serious horse shit, Princess!" He decides that he'll do this. He will stay and fight to the last drop. And he just dumps his duffel bag where he stands. Won't move another inch before he's said what he came to say. "Oh, you _had_ to! I bet you did. Cause boohoo, you didn't want '_to hurt my feelings'_. Ain't that so, Buttercup?"

"Fuck. You. James."

The rain like bucket after bucket of dishwater, smelling of earth and butchered possibilities.

"I reckon, you ain't ever had the guts to see anything through, girl. That's all there is to it."

Her eyes boring into him, slicing through. The only thing defined, definite in her face, the rest blurred, sloppily drawn. He isn't nearly thick-skinned enough for this. Wants to flatten his palm against his heart. It fucking hurts.

"What? You wanna skedaddle out of here now? Go ahead! Run! I ain't stopping you."

"What do you want to hear? That I never _wanted_ you!"

No. Wants to hear that she loves him. Always had, always will. But she looks like something that has crawled up from the underworld, some creature that lives down a slimy, cold well. Eyes scrunched together, unseeing.

"No Golly, 'cause God help us if we should actually start speaking the goddamn truth, you'll be running hollering down this damn hill. 'Cause you can't handle it!"

Sees how she buffs herself up. Like a little muddy warrior, cut-throat expression. Knows he's pushing his luck.

"But I can handle _this,_ James. _This_, I can handle just fine on my own, right? It's not like I haven't done it before!" Jerks her chin downwards, making his eyes slide down to the round shape, tunic slick to her skin, strangely obscene how her bellybutton is visible. "And you're the one who chickened out in the end. Not _me_!"

In the end. Wants to tell her that it isn't over, not by a long stretch. But maybe it is.

"So that... that back in Bali, that pathetic last ditch '_I want you. _That was _what_? Your last fucking choice, Kate?"

_Say 'no'_ _baby. _Wants to hear her say that he's the _one_. Fat big chance of that ever happening now. But she stops. Just stands there, straight up, arms falling to her side. Lets the weather have its way with her. As if she's part of nature, doesn't even bother wiping the rain away from her eyes. Breathing shallowly, mouth going slack, gawking. Something dull and spent about her.

"Don't do this… Don't – "

And someone ought to call the dogs off but he sure as hell isn't in the shape to be the better man.

"Tell me something Freckles... You say you've got issues out the _wazoo..._ Can't be what I want, can't give me what I need, yadayada - and then, hey! All I've got to do is get you up the duff - and voila, just like that, all of a sudden I'm your goddamn _Huckleberry_. Suddenly you _want _me, Kate?"

"James... Don't –"

"What's _that_ about? Old Jackass not around to be your fall-back guy no more, forced to settle for _this_ asshole instead?"

Words with a serrated edge, and he can see how they tear her up. How she inhales, a moment of apnea as if he has wrung her lungs dry.

"Always your sloppy seconds, ain't I, Sweetheart? "

"It was never like that!"

Her hair plastered to her head as if someone has thrown a bucket of tar over her. That fuse, fizzling fitfully towards a complete demolition. The sense of being in the fast lane to hell. And he knows he should be kneeling before her in the mud. _Sorry, so sorry, sorry. _But right now he isn't. Just furious and scared and desperate.

"You ain't got to tell me what it was like, Princess! I was _there_, remember! Right from our fucked-up miserable beginning. You _want_ me, but you don't want what's real!"

"Shut up!"

And he's said enough. He knows he has, but he can't stop. _Not now. _Don't want this no more. Doesn't want to love her. Only, he doesn't know how to stop. And the thunder makes his skin crawl. _Take me to your bed_, that's what he wants to say. Let it be about sex. Let it be all there is. But his stupid mouths moves on its own accord. Tongue dripping with poison.

"I ain't what you were looking for and it scares the hell out of you! That's what all this sidestepping, backtracking, sucking up to Jackass was all about. Right from the start!"

"I said; _shut up_! I don't want to hear it - " She retreats from him abruptly, padding backwards unsteadily. And he panics at the thought of being left out here in the thunderstorm on his own. Catapults his hand out, yanking her back by the collar of her tunic.

"Well you're damn well gonna'! For once we're going fight this one out! Jack… that was _bullshit _extraordinaire, Freckles! He was safe, wadn't he? He was your fucking safety net. Nothing else."

"Stop it. Stop –" Slapping at his arm, trying to make him release her. Damn, she's just a scrap of a thing. He could lift her by her neck if he wanted to.

Instead he lets go so abruptly, she glides back. Hitting her rump on the ground with a splash. Shooting up again. Her mouth is an ugly dark hole, her face a grimace. Knows she's hurting, but so is he. Their eternal argument, small and petty, comparing their bitter little hearts, measuring each other's pain._ Who hurts the most._ He does. She does. The two of them, ankle deep in the mucky mud soup below her porch. He goes for broke. It's dog eat dog, nothing to lose, absolutely nothing.

He kicks at his duffel bag, soaking up sludge in a puddle and tugs his sleeves up as if he's prepared to go one on one against her.

"What _really_ bugs you is that you fell for me in the first place. Must say something about you, don't it? A deadbeat A-grade loser, with diddly-squat to offer – _that's_ who makes your loins quiver! That's _who_ you want. Not the fine Doctor, nobody else..."

"Don't –"

No longer out to get her back, just out to get her. Period. _Wants to mar her. _Like one of those savage cockfights he'd seen on Bali. Vicious and merciless, there are never any winners. They'll both be creeping away maimed and disfigured, licking wounds that won't ever heal.

"Don't _what_, Kate? It's the goddamn truth, ain't it?"

The way she'd been - '_I want you_' – the sudden u-turn. Changing all the rules. Making _him _the bad guy. _Well fuck it_. How was he to know it would feel like this? And how the fuck is it that he still loves her when she's done nothing but run from him.

But she's not running now. Instead she moves closer to him, excruciatingly slow, like a feline, eyes squinting, claws sharpened. And maybe it's as well they burn it to the ground. Better off not leaving anything standing. Perhaps then he'll be able to walk away and never look back. Bury her like another bad conscience, another source of guilt . Put her down. There is a plot already dug and ready waiting for her, right in between Cassie's girl and the innocent man he killed.

"So what really happened to Jacko', Kate? Usually he's in like Flynn as soon as I turn my fat back. Why ain't he here clamouring for the warm spot in your bed, huh? Ain't willing to play substitute no more? Wadn't that eager for another chance at raising some jerkwad's bastard, huh?"

And this is when the thick suffocating smoke dissipates and her anger explodes, crystal clear and crisp and there is nothing foggy about it. Shapes her hands like a butterfly, thumb against thumb shoving against his chest, impelling him backwards, sending him stumbling.

He's gone too far.

Her eyes glossy, tearful – a mixture of sadness and fury that he hates. Her teeth visible as her slow shallow pushes turn into snappy, jerky thrusts propelling him backwards. But she says nothing. Her face lit up by a sudden flash, tangerine yellow amongst grungy greys.

"You know _nothing_ - about that! You left me - with Jack... with... I had to – by myself. You _left_! Twice!"

Hiccupping, stuttering, and he can't say what it is. Doesn't know if she's talking about the helicopter jump. The kid, the boy she lost._ Goddamnit_, what was he supposed to have done? Jack sure as hell didn't make any sacrifices. Didn't give her up to keep her safe. He did. _He did._

"But I'm here _now_! "

Too late. Too late to come here and smash it all up. It's already broken. He can't fix this. And the rain keeps beating down on them, standing there, it drips down his face, over his eyes, like a watery curtain. Could cry now, and she'd be none the wiser. He might already be, it doesn't matter either way. Crocodile tears, they won't make a difference.

"What – do – you – want?"

"I wanna'…" _Hell,_ he doesn't know. He's lost sight of it. Wants to trample it all down, clomp and stamp until there is nothing left to fight about. _Wants her to love him._ "I wanna' cash in my - carte blanche!"

Like waving a red flag to a bull, her hands curling into fists. Play-punches him, like a lithe little boxer, sparring. Would look absolutely ridiculous if it weren't so damn tragic. Her feet moving while she dukes it out and he's just a clumsy oaf stumbling on backwards.

"Piss off, Sawyer."

"It's my carte blanche, we had a deal!"

And then like a burst of nails and razor blades coming zinging in his direction.

"Oh, did we?_"_ Her rapping fists, stinging like a wet towel slapped against bare skin. But she can't actually want to hurt him, the way she just hits his torso. "So what, James? You want to be _forgiven_ now?"

Her voice deceptively calm. Tries to divert the small whip-like blows thrashing viciously precise against his breastbone, tripping him backwards.

"Alright, you're forgiven! How about that?" Accompanied by a swift swipe at his shoulder that he dodges. Get's another good one in. "Happy now!"

"Oh fuck! That don't feel a whole lot forgiving, Honey."

"Really? Really, James!"

Holding his palms up, trying to protect himself the best he can. So much anger in those little fists clobbering at him. Like being a therapist's cushion, a punching bag.

"Alright, _alright!_ Cut it out! Forget the forgiveness shit! You know what, Kate. Changed my mind. - I want a kiss."

Doesn't know why he's saying it. Knows it'll be a cold day in hell before his lips touch hers again. But it's a toss-up between lying down in the earthy sauce on the ground and die in a puddle or putting forward an unreasonable request. And he runs with the latter.

"A kiss?"

She hesitates before throwing the next punch.

"Yup."

What follows. A proper wallop hitting him across the jaw. So much for sticking to the chest.

"Ouch, for fuck's sake, Kate." he groans, reaching up to touch his sore chin. "You know what a kiss is, Darling."

"You want a '_kiss'_, James?"

"Yeah. That's what I want." Points at his lips, giving her a little prissy pout, ducking her onslaught, knowing it must rile her exceptionally. "One little kiss. Make it snappy! Ain't got all fucking day."

She hits his shoulder so hard he recoils. Straight at a nerve.

"You can kiss this! – You snide - sonofabitch!"

And the line is so damn corny, he chortles through the pain. And the punches keep coming. Tries to swat her away, interrupting her flow while backing down. But she is like a little piranha, out for meat and she's going to get it. Gnaw the bones clean. And he'd have fought back. But that belly of hers is an effective armor. He doesn't want to risk hurting her. Bigger now. A proper baby belly. Intimidating and daunting.

"A deal is a deal... Ain't that's what _you _said?"

And everything is slippery, skidding out of control. Another flash illuminating the sky, her face. And he flinches when the thunder roars just seconds later. He thinks his nose might be dripping blood then again, impossible to say. Everything liquid, fluid, nothing to hold on to.

"It's not going to - change anything!"

"Then what are you so _fucking _scared of?" Makes himself broad, gets in her face, with an audacity, a loud-mouthed boldness that is all bluff, no substance. A big-assed bark and no bite. It doesn't help. She keeps pelting him and he tries to deflect her hands.

"I don't trust you! How can I trust you?"

She tackles him and he stumbles, as if drunk but manages to stay upright. And he sees it now. He's not breaking through to her. He's breaking her down. Her mouth trembling, and he knows this look. Still, her fist comes flying again. But it's losing its sting, he can hardly feel it. Or maybe he's immune.

"Who else, Kate? Ain't nobody else" And he doesn't want to be this man. The one who hurts her. The one who makes her look like she is coming apart. He won't be. Must stop this. "I'm the _one_, goddamnit! And you can deny it all you want. It ain't gonna' change a thing. I - am - the - _one. _And _you_ still love me."

And just like that, she slows down, moves as if she were made from cement. He can see the fight seeping out of her. Evaporating.

"Look at me. Just fucking look at me!" He throws his hands out. Searching frantically for the right words, the way to break down that infuriating wall. And what do you know. The only thing missing in the seventh circle of hell. He's almost forty years old and his damn eyes have sprung a leak, his throat feeling as if it has been stuffed with thick porridge. "I'm fucked without you. _Fucked_!"

Fucked with her too. Standing here sniffling like a girl.

What happens next is beyond him. Her bizarre behavior, mystifying. Maybe it's what he said or maybe it's the stupid, undignified tears, that ultimately save him. She blinks as if it's all greek to her. As if she hasn't understood a word he's said but the next punch stops there, on his shirt, fingers extending from their cramp-like clinch. Fist unfurling, touching the buttons, and he finds himself being pulled. Her hand snaking in between two buttons, grasping at the fabric, wrenching him near.

Takes advantage of the small opening, the little unguarded moment. Snags hold behind her neck, before she changes her mind. Her skin, freezing cold and glossily wet. But he doesn't care about the rain, the storm, the fight. Doesn't give a hoot about being right, winning points, cares about nothing - but this.

_Her._

Hauls her face in, nose to nose. Like a cat mother trying to get a good grip on a rowdy kitten, holding her head in place by the scruff of her neck. Nothing soft, nothing gentle about it. And the vicinity to her turns him inside out, like emptying a pocket, all kind of garbage tumbling out.

"You think I don't _want_ you, Kate?" His voice splintering, breaking up. Like a teenage boy's, rising an octave. Got her head-locked, his fingertips meeting at the nape, thumbs against her ears. Not letting go. _Love me, your stupid fuck_, he wants to say. "Ain't nothing. - Nothing else I want."

Using his chin, his nose and his lips to nudge at her face, tugs at her, pulls at her hair. Banging into her, doesn't care if it hurts, teeth against teeth. He's nerves and impulses, detached from logic. Opening his lips and he's surprised when she responds. Kisses him hard and rough, presses her mouth to his. A kiss between reprisal and desperation. Savors her, wants to settle the scores, once and for all. Turns sweeter once they both realize that no one will pull away. That no one will back out. How her tongue softens, tracing his lips. Tasting like redemption. Like a peace offering now.

And inexplicably she starts laughing. Hysterically, mouth wide open, slumping against him. Has to prop her up like a big old ragdoll, standing there like a fool wondering if she's really lost her mind. If she's laughing at him or at her or at the two of them. Is about to push her away when without warning, the laughter turns into crying. Just like that, mouth gaping wide. And he must have done this. _Holy shit. _Don't cry. _Don't cry, baby-girl_. An acute heartache when she falls apart all over, face crumpling, giving in to the sorrow. _No. No. So sorry._

Not the normal open-mouthed freakish crying. Not that silent shit. _No,_ straight from the belly, real honest to God, non-censored bawling, big fat tears and all. And he racks his brain trying to remember all the garbage he's vomited over her today. Wondering which one, what specific insult did the trick. Holds her at an awkward angle, stroking the wet tangled mess of her hair. Like patting an unkempt sheep-dog. The sound, like nothing he's ever heard from her before. And he feels lower than the lowest sewer rat.

He did this. To _her._ The only girl he ever wanted.

"You left me." Just a little squeak. The waterworks on full blast, crying him a goddamn river, as if the rain isn't enough.

"Yeah - I'm the dumbest fucker alive." _Sorry, sorry, sorry._

Sorry for all he's ever done, all he's ever said and there is no way to retract any of it. And somehow, the thought of the baby, the one she'd lost nags at him, at the back of his mind. Whispering something he can't understand. Maybe she needs to punish him. God knows he has deserved it. The baby, she'd been so alone with that first kid.

"Why did you have... to come here? I was... I was doing fine." Her fingers clenching desperately around the fabric of his shirt contradicting the words. Wants to tell her to go ahead. Hit him. Pound him into a bloody mush. He deserves it everything he gets. How they were, way back then when he'd told her he hoped she wasn't knocked up or maybe he'd said some other insensitive shit. She'd been all alone that time, in every conceivable way. No wonder she'd scuttled back to Doc.

"No you weren't. You and me, we don't do _'fine'_." It's moronic to try to have a conversation like this. How she can make him brittle, can dispossess him. "The baby… The boy..."

He pushes his face down, the side of his nose flat against hers, slick and sticky, rain and tears. His or hers, he doesn't know – doesn't care. Snotty little girl, draws the back of his fingers under her nose in a vane attempt at cleaning her up, as if she were indeed a little kid. Hushing her, wants to take her in his arms like a child and rock her. Kiss it better. _Shush, I'm here now. _Somewhere a light is turned on. A bright as hell 100 watt light.

"The kid. Back then? That's what _this_ is all about? That's why you can't ever forgive me?"

Her hands bunching up his shirt front at that and he just deflates. Maybe she nods, he doesn't know, just buffs his face against hers. Trying to get closer, always trying to bridge the gap. What sort of asshole is he? Standing here shouting at her about all sorts of crap, the Doc, about ditching him. As if he has any grievances worth airing.

When she's got this on him. Triumphing everything. _Their boy. _Tragic, hovering above them, a shameful cloud of guilt and grief. The worst thing that could have happen – it _did_ happen.

And it happened to her. _Not him._

It's not about Jack, not about Juliet. All that anger – it's not a wrong that he can right, it's not even one that he can help. The jumping off that helicopter, staying behind, there wasn't much of a choice. But it doesn't change a _damn_ thing.

He wasn't there for her. When it mattered.

And she just cries, wailing, all defenses down as if it's been a long time coming. He presses her face against his shoulder, swaying there in the pouring rain. Letting her snivel best she wants, and he cries too. For all that he isn't, that he couldn't be. For how she clings to him – in spite of everything. After all cruel shit he's spewed out, she's still here, clutching onto him. He crosses his arms behind her back. And holds her hard. _Hard._

_No more._

"I'm sorry – I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry – so sorry... " Repeats it over and over again, with the sinking feeling that a shitty little sorry won't ever make up for all the ways he has failed her. Surprised to hear her voice, inhaling abruptly as if she's trying to regain the control.

"Everything you said... was true. " The sound cushioned by his chest. Her hands cold on his skin where they make contact beneath his ribs. "But it isn't now."

"Wha... what are you saying, Freckles?" And he hardly dares to blink. Feels wobbly, rickety, about to collapse. Can't scream at her if she just lays down and bares her throat like this. Just throws weapons at his feet. _It was true_. And as much as it hurts to hear her admit it. It was true, he wasn't crazy. True, _but it isn't now_. The last four words makes hope peek through. Timidly sticking it's cowardly nose out. "Do you...? What about now, Kate? What's true now?"

Her nose, she pokes it in, burrows into him like a little friendly puppy. And there he is, wetter than a fish, his mouth feeling worn out. He's said too much. So much, he can never take back. As if it weren't hard enough for her to forgive him as it was. Wondering what to do next. Let go. Hold the fort, fight some more. Run down the hill. Catch the next boat out on the high waves.

Doesn't know._ Doesn't know anything._

"You… It's all you. I waited for you. Waited, I... hoped you'd come." Subdued. Not looking at him, just whispering, murmuring into his chest. "And... I... I don't want to - fight no more."

And what has to happen now, he doesn't know. Never seen this script before. They've never reached this point before. Never screamed obscenities at each other once second only to have this happening next. Virgin ground. How she's stronger than him. Bafflingly resilient.

"This ain't fighting. This... I don't know what this is." He hesitates, puts his toes down carefully. His lips on her brow. Kissing her, tentatively. Afraid he might have misheard, misunderstood. "Just tell me... Christ. I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. Tell me what to do, Freckles."

He strokes her back, large expansive movements. Wet fabric hindering smoothness. Scared of what she'll say. Scared she'll say nothing at all. But that's when he feels her. Feels her lip move before he actually hears it.

"Stay, please... "A little squawky whimper that paralyses him. And evolution is a warm puff of air through cold, sodden fabric. "Don't go."

"You mean... stay the night or stay – _stay_?" Like an idiot, but he needs it spelled out for him, gingerly touching her hair, sopping wet between his fingers.

"Stay."

His stomach clenches automatically, as if he's been punched, solar plexus. How she topples the established order of the universe with her mouth in his shirt. One word that changes everything.

A gift. Whispered into his chest. And he's star-struck. Goddamnit. She spoke. She asked. And she said 'stay' and 'don't go', all at the same time. To him. Choosing him. Weeping and sniffling, and the weight lifts, the suffocating burden disperses.

"You've got it, baby-girl." He rubs at the back of her head. Rocking on his feet, back and forward. Still reeling from it. - _Stay. _"Fuck it all."

She pushes apart from him to look up at his face. Her hand flush against his breastbone, keeping the distance. How she nods at him, eyes puffy and red-rimmed.

"Fuck it...?" Tasting the two words, looking like he's just proposed a threesome with a baboon. But he'll show her how much he wants this.

"Yeah, fuck it. _Fuck_ being scared, fuck all our crap – all that baggage. Fuck it all." His pulse thumping under the palm of her hand. Like a wild elephant having a panic attack in an oil drum. "Fuck the consequences. I'm so damned tired of being alone. I just want you."

Like magic and inadequate as they are, those words wipe away any residual anger, soak up any remaining trace of hesitation. She seems to exhale, she lowers those rigid shoulders a good inch and a half. Her hand softening against his chest. Meets his eyes dead on, searching them.

A tiny muscle pulled at the corner of her mouth. And her eyes, behind stringy, inky wet hair, blinking slowly, once, that cat-like signal she has. _Alright, we're okay now._

"Yeah, don't look so darn pleased. You'll be popping that kid out in some shed, by your lonesome. No painkillers, no fancy doctors, no - "

"But you... you'll be here." Fat good it'll do her, but he will. And the blueprint for them, makes itself reminded. How skin must be felt, how the rift between them can't be too large. A mutual decision, how she floats closer, or maybe he does, moving so that her belly brushes by his crotch. A little tender dance in the rain. Swaying softly. The brutal precision of her plump breasts somewhere at level with his lower ribs.

_Him and her._

"And amazing as I am at certain things, it's more the front end of that whole baby process that I master," he says into the wet mop of hair, feeling her ribs under his fingers as he draws up the hem of her tunic, driving his hands inside. Wonders if she's been eating or if the belly and boobs are just courtesy of the little freak, just a faux front.

"I don't care," she says with such a breathless ease he wants to show her that mastery right now. And the next thing he knows she's yanking him along. Half conscious of leaving his bag lying out there in a pool of mud. Not a priority now, when they stumble, clumsy, heavy-footed back towards the house, trampling through puddles, arms wound tight around one another. Her repeated; _stay, stay, stay_ – driving him on. Lips grazing his chin, nipping the sensitive skin. Like two drenched scarecrows bundling up on the porch, hustling under the shelter of the roof. Both of them casting a sideway glance at the daybed, and then at one another.

His throat tightening, swallows with difficulty. It's here. The moment is here, to rush forward, no second guessing. He will make it work. He'll take a job at a banana plantation, peddle tea in plastic bags at the road side. Hell, he'll juggle ducks at the circus for a few pennies if that's what it takes. He'll get down on his knees, crawl, plead, beg and nag. Jackass won't have the heart to turn him down for a loaner. He'll do what he's got to do. She's got him by the short hairs. And if she wants him – he's hers.

"_Fuck,_ how I want this..." Snakes a hand up her back, _fast, fast, fast_. Inside the cotton of her tunic, clammy under his hand. In under her hair, drawing fingertips across her neck, thumb rubbing at the nape. " _You_ and me and that little freak, _here_. Now. Fuck, _how_ I want it!"

Like a spell has been broken, and she ambushes him, the rain out there subsiding as the storm in here picks up. Blitz-krieg, the way she raids him, her hands aggressive ground-forces, advancing, in under his shirt. He tries to wedge off his shoes with his toes. Kicks them away. And she does the same with her flip-flops. Producing a stupid duck-like kind of dance between the two of them.

Barely aware of the daybed somewhere behind him and he takes a gamble, pulling her down with him. Keeling over like a pair of drunken octopuses, all jumbled up. The structure screeches, bamboo sagging under their combined weight. It isn't made for rough and tumbling of this calibre, that's for sure. Rolling around with her in his arms, one second he's on top, the next it's her. Can't decide how he wants her. But once he's got her on her back, spread out like the world's eighth wonder, he decides that it won't get more perfect than this. She as hot as Hades and her cheeks are blossoming a hopeful rosy red.

"I'm sorry about your nose." She wipes it with her sleeve, leaving dark red streaks on her white tunic.

"I had it coming..." And he did. The shame thick now. The vile things he'd screamed at her. Doesn't even want to think of that now. Not ever.

"Yeah… I tried not to hit you in the face but…"

"You should have broken my goddamn jaw, Freckles... Hell, the shit I said -"

And holy smokes. She shushes him, actually says 'shush', pulling him down. Kisses him like it's D-day, demanding his unreserved and unconditional surrender. And he lays down any pretense of playing it smooth. Tip of tongue forcing his lips open. Thinks of the little shrimp. If it minds him getting all wild and frazzled about its mother. Doesn't want to spook it, though he guesses shouting on the top of their lungs has already accomplished that.

"Ah hell..." Gasps at the taste of her, and shoves any thoughts of the little freak away. She is his right now. Only his. Raspberry cool and sweet, her fingers in his hair, like a thief, mapping out possible loot. Stroking him from brow to crown, trailing down the back of his neck, making him shiver. And she has the ability to clean him out in two seconds flat. Always has.

"Come..."

"Maybe we ought to... take it slow..." he croaks hoarsely. Doesn't want to behave like some horny kind of brute with no self-control. No, he's a damn hypocrite. He doesn't mean it. _At all. _In any case, couldn't stop if he wanted to. It's too late. No brakes on this ride.

"Yeah –" Just a token answer. Means nothing either when they scuffle and fight, eager hands colliding trying to free her from the dumb tunic. Like glue on her skin. Strips her out of it so quickly, her hair gets tangled when he yanks it over her head. She lets out a little yelp but he's mesmerized by the distended stomach, the elastic of her trousers pushed beneath it. The way she spills out of her plain white bra. Nipples like little exotic berries under the fabric.

"You've grown some belly, girl." _Fuck._ He's such a senseless fuckwit. Regrets it so, letting her go. Allowing this to slip away so easily. So much time lost. The money, the practicalities, he hasn't got a clue how he'll wrangle that loan out of Jack but he'll suck on his shoe soles and put every penny on keeping her plump and healthy. He'll find a way. Won't lose another microsecond. Won't.

Sweet Jayzus.

Agonizing to think of anything but the blistering desire when her hands roam over his skin. The rate of his breathing escalating, _fuck_. He's no match for her. Salivates at the sight of her. And it was always like this. The two of them. They might have many issues, so many things wrong. But this isn't one of them. Knows they will run out, they will exhaust it one day. And at the rate they're going, probably sooner rather than later.

Her thighs parted and she grinds herself against him. Her tongue against his, lips tender and unrelenting at the same time, making him groan. Her hip bones digging into his crotch and he tries to inhale properly. _Shit._ This is moving too fast. Too uncontrolled, it's too unstable. He wants to be in charge, can't lose sight of the big picture. Him and her. A future. Can't be like every other time they come together.

This time. Will be different.

So he turns his face to the side, leaving her looking a little silly, swollen red lips parted, taken aback by his sudden retreat. He strokes the fine line of her cheek with a finger, following the gentle curve. Wonders if she has a romantic bone in her body. Always physical. And he's a man, he ought to be over the moon to have a woman who doesn't want to lie and talk instead of making love. Fact is, he's a soppy old sap who needs corny declarations of undying love, meaningless symbols and trite old conventions. Needs her to verbalize.

"How do you know this is it, Kate?" Needs her to wipe away every last smudge of uncertainty. A measly '_I love you_' hummed into the crook of his neck would do just fine. God knows he hasn't deserved it but as they say - all is fair in love and war.

"I just know." That's as much as he'll get out of her. It's already plenty, he knows it, and he should be satisfied. Should just sit back and enjoy the trip.

"Hey slow down Freckles... You know we're some kind of cliché, you and me."

She doesn't answer, instead she dives down to decorate him, paints a succession of scorching kisses from his throat, moving almost innocently across his Adam's apple. And he should just forget about it all, take care of the carnal needs first. Talk later. But he can't. He's such a fucking girl. This urge to air feelings, not the man he used to be. He catches hold of her face, her chin between his thumb and index finger. Pulling himself up, forcing her to look at him.

"Hey, wait a sec, Honey. You know the drill. We've been doing this for donkey's years… We fuss and fight and then we fuck it all better... and... Well, I'm just saying - "

His head smarts from trying to articulate that grain of doubt. Dick throbbing hard in the hollow between her legs, wondering why there are still layers of fabric keeping them apart. She fastens her eyes on his and there is something bare and honest there, like headlights in the daze.

"It's not like that. Not this time."

"i just want this to be... it. " _Wants it to be real. _"What's different? This time?"

Doesn't want to screw it up. So afraid of slipping up, losing her in the morning. Repeating history. The muscles of her thighs against the outside of his hips as if she's holding him in place, making sure he doesn't bold. Can't help bucking against her.

Her fingers coming up between them, coasting over his mouth, thumb over his stubble. It occurs to him that he ought to have shaved. Already knows he'll chafe her raw.

"I'm not - I'm not scared anymore."

Swoons.

And there they are. Hell_, yeah_. He's not ashamed to admit it. Wants to whoop and jump up and down. Wants to air punch the sky, and do a little dance of joy How he goes all mushy inside and her eyes seem greener than banana leafs in her pale face. And fuck, he can see it. How she meets him unflinchingly.

"Good for you ... Frankly, I'm so damned freaked out, I can't see straight."

Her eyes mellowing on him, stroking his face in a way he's not used to. As if she loves him. going from sexual to affectionate in less than zero.

"Don't be... I'll take care of you." Lifts her head to cajole him back down into a kiss. And it's some kind of Jedi mind trick. A shy little kiss that makes his heart just about fly out of his trunk. Maybe she's teasing him but hell, he'll let her have her fun. It doesn't matter. He's done. It's a deal.

_She can do what she wants with him._

Satisfies his romantic reveries by driving his hands down inside the back her pants, snaking it down her underwear. His hands squashed between her weight and the mattress. The fabric soggy and cold but she is glowing red hot beneath. His fingers curving around her buttocks, all supple skin. Goose bumps clearly discernable beneath his palms as he drives himself against her, fingers that want to go further. Wants to slip into the honeysuckle wetness of hers.

Her hands on his neck, skimming down inside his collar. And oh, he couldn't wish for more. Intrepid courage, bone-hard conviction under the heavy layer of desire. Would have mowed down the last speck of a doubt. But it's the words. What she said. It about kills him.

_I'll take care of you._

Finds that he can breathe properly for the first time since he arrived. Imagines it's something similar to her lowering her shoulders from their position up by her ears. A tension gives way and he can concentrate on her. Only her now. Leans down to kiss that spot, at the base of her throat.

She's like Attila the Hun, out to rule and conquer. How everything has to happen at a breakneck speed and if he'd let her lead the way they'd be done in two minutes flat. She tugs at his shirt, too impatient, too uncoordinated to get the little buttons open. Swearing and cussing, a single-minded pursuit for naked skin, wedging hands inside sticky, clingy clothes. _Off, get them off_. Without delay. They soon have both his shirt and those weird pajama pants chucked on the floor, on the ground somewhere, doesn't care. How she kisses him, wild and uninhibited when he brushes his thumbs over her bra. Some miserable white thing, a few cups too small. The top of her breasts, like they are about to make an escape. A flash of guilt for not being here, not looking after her all these weeks. He'd have bought her new clothes.

Unsophisticated and raw, out here in the open, the rain whipping the ground so hard it splashes up on the porch. The thunder slowly moving past them, the sound growing more distant. And he's the man of long drawn-out foreplays. Of extended and protracted pleasure. But all has its place, and there is no time for waiting now.

The monsoon hammering on the corrugated steel, the sound deafening mirroring his heartbeat. The sky dusky dark even though it's barely afternoon.

A hectic rhythm stolen from the kiss, pulse picking up as it intensifies, accelerates, turns adamant. The heedless claim of her mouth, that hunger of hers. A kiss that torpedoes through him, a zing from mouth to dick, as if linked by one single nerve. Her lips like warm sweet brandy, comforting and stirring at the same time.

What a damn waste of time, staying away from her. Should have known, he'd end up here all the same.

"We should have started here. Right here… skipped all the damn fighting. Right here."

This is what he ought to have done, right from the start. Bent down on his knees before her. Should have pulled the cups of her bra down. Like this. First one, then the other. Bent his neck, leaning down a little further, kissed the strawberry vanilla of the tip as if it were the Papal ring. Worshipping it. The other circled softly with his fingertips.

And when he glances up at her face, the effect of what he's doing reaches her cheeks. How she puffs them out when he rounds the nipple with his tongue. Enjoying how the soft relievo protrudes, awakens to his lips. Erection full and pressing furiously inside his jeans. Now._ Now._

And they are like teenagers, necking on their parent's sofa. Grinding, gliding against one another. Friction through clothes that doesn't satisfy either of them.

He grapples behind her back to unsnap the bra. She should wear nothing. Absolutely nothing. Tosses it behind him, chucking it high, hoping it gets stuck in a tree. A sign of her capitulation, their sweet peace treaty, signed with a kiss. Witnessed by a dozen house lizards congregating on the porch columns. And her breasts can stand an audience. How they wobble when she moves, float out to the side when she lies down like this.

Now. Needs to be inside her now and it's all taking to damn long.

He tries eeling himself out of his jeans with her help, the boxers shoved down at the same time. Though she offers more of a distraction than actual assistance. Her rapid willowy hands moving in measured waves over his abdomen, his muscles contracting under her touch. Likes the way she lifts her head to look down between them, checking him out. Even regaling him with a little nod as if saying, _nice to see you again_. And it's silly, but he's not used to this open physical admiration. Not from her. It makes him hold his head a little higher. Makes him feel like he matters. How her fingertips travel down, stroking him. Dick waking up with a painful twang. Abstinence and months of fantasizing has the adrenaline pumping at merest stimuli.

A conquest, though perhaps he is _hers,_ and not the other way around. _She owns him now_. He hovers over her. Running a hand down her side, the outside of her thigh. Seems impossible a woman can have skin like this, softer than whipped cream and apricot. And Christ, she's got a fine, subtle curve to those hips now. Like a real woman.

His hand down between her legs, and she hitches her buttocks up, instantly meeting him. As if she can wait no longer. And _fuck_, how he wants this. Tussling to wrench off her underwear, the last barrier. And then, there she is. To die for. Her, sultry like a dewy tropical garden. Naked and glorious in that shy happiness, she doesn't quite own. Just borrows. Has to look at her, take it all in. Too unreal. It's happened too fast. And he wants to savour, wants to make it laIst a little longer. This victory, this hard earned triumph that he has no idea what he did to win. But he's incapable of halting his roaming hands.

"What happened to taking it slow?" Wants him to eat his words and she can humble him all she wants. He doesn't care. The pulsating craving, he can't form a coherent thought, much less keep up a conversation any meaningful level. Tries to hold back the urge to plunge into her, but he's so close.

"Screw taking it slow," he grumbles as he nudges at her to spread her thighs wider because _fuck_, he can't wait. Hands smoothing her apart, how she lets her legs fall wide open. Persimmon pink and juicy like something that should be eaten. The tender inside of her thighs, a texture like fine white chocolate. And beyond, the susurration of that sweet darkness. _Come, come, come._

He slithers down, her sticky skin fizzing under his lips. Wants to taste her, explore the new flavour of this woman. Wondering if it's icky to be so turned on by this, the new shape of her. But then again, _he_ did this to her. A bigger validation to his manhood than anything, the life in her. No, he can't find it in himself to find this, her and him, distasteful in any way. It just is what it is.

His mouth overs the soft skin on the downward slope beneath her belly button, a straight course down south. But she stops him, hands on his upper arms.

"Come," she says and his heart skips a beat when she tugs to bring him face to face with her. "Come..."

No patience for that other stuff, for his elaborate seduction bullshit. Wants to cut to the chase and he can't say he minds. Whatever she wants. She just has to say the word. She lifts a foot up and hooks it around him and how she kisses him at the same time. A wide open welcome. Her moisture, the sap of life, incandescent warmth welcoming him, promising all sorts of delights.

And though she says nothing more, her fingers on his face, on his back, up over his shoulders, they say 'you're the one'. Her hands on his skin; 'I won't let you go'. Her heated kisses say; 'come, come, come'. It's been so long. Her whole body unfolding, unfurling like a magnolia to the sweet soft humming of honey bees in the dusk. A little intake of air as he sinks down into her, heat and tightness enveloping him.

Pushes his upper lip above her cupid's bow. Needs to balance out the sensation of her clenching around him. Follows the gentle curve of her lip, slowly, letting her monopolize him. Her mouth, like licking drops of rain from an apple. He exhales, she inhales, respiring through one another. And she tastes like she smells; _fearless_.

And he has barely time to slot inside her again before he feels her quivering, vibrating around him. Bewilderingly soft, curiously void of the undertones of shame he's grown to expect from her. _Baffling._ The kiss losing all pretence of finesse, becoming raw and hungry. Another gentle thrust and her eyelids are clipping, chest rising and falling. Her head falling to the side and he watches in fascination how her mouth forms a little sweet 'o', as if this is already too much.

"Well, hot damn… How about that?" Fascinated by the immediate response, the subtle but obvious reaction to his every little movement. _Hyper sensitive_, and he's heard of this. How women can be when they're up the duff, but never, never in his fucking life had he imagined it such a goddamn delight.

He responds in kind, gives his hips an experimental little lift, fine-tuning for maximum effect. Exhilarated when he's rewarded with a gasp. The fine outline of her jaw as she tips her head back for him. The soft sound from the base of her throat, the sweet _'hmmm'_ as if she's eating ice cream with her fingers. _No shame_.

_Jayzus_ and holy mother of all things worth holding on to.

How she squirms and goes rigid at the smallest amount of movement. The clawing at his shoulders, leading him on, drawing him in. As if she comes a thousand times, every time he moves. And it isn't romantic, _hell_, it's nothing like that. It's raw and sexual and heart-stoppingly beautiful. And to think that he'd been willing to give this up.

"That can't be normal girl." Can't resist teasing her when she shudders again. A rather load moan that has him puff up. Pride and dick, swelling in equal dimensions. Inebriated by the sensation, intoxicated by her palpable pleasure. The bed belly-aching, complaining with every little shift, every smooth move. A banal rhythm, the universal anthem of lovers everywhere.

"Hey Freckles, it's playing out song..." he says rocking it on purpose in a way he knows embarrasses her, how her eyelashes flutter. Damn, she's something alright. Small pearls of sweat on her upper lip, or maybe it's rain. All of her moist and deliciously sweet, like honeycomb butterscotch. Loves this, loves _her._

"Just shut up, James." Her voice dusky and he must be doing something to her liking because her cheeks are flush with colour, blushing candy pink from face to pert nipples. How she seems to loosen up completely, liquefying, freckles blurring, floating out. The highest praise possible. How she lifts her arms above her head, letting them rest there while she peers at him, sleepy-eyed and with a dumb little smile, watching him move inside of her.

He raises himself higher above her on straight arms, moving on instinct. Wants to have a good view of her, wants to see how her lips go from open to pressed closed. How she bites her lip, draws them inside her mouth. How she fights to be silent, not to make any noise. Wants to tell her to let go, to be as loud as she wants to. But he likes it too. The way she fights it.

...

The bamboo structure of the bed squeaking as they move, a loud griping noise. Something tacky about it that makes her want to hide her face, but then she couldn't watch him. And it's such a treat. Him, backlit when the sky shines up in another flash, making his hair look like strings of gold and amber against the charcoal grey of the roof. Holding himself up on bulging arms, skin shimmering from minute drops of perspiration. The ebb and flow, the fluid undulation of hips. Moving back and forward in a steady pace. Watches the junction where they are joined together, the string of fine hair leading down there.

The perfect measure of him sliding into her, all the way, drawing out as far as she lets him. The mayhem of sensations, chili pepper sweetness. The wind cooling her sweaty skin, but she isn't cold. Not with him here, making her skin burn. The rustle of the cinnamon trees swaying around them, a smell of ocean and jungle. Making love in the open. Carelessly, as if no one could ever drop in unannounced. Can't even think of that now.

It's been so long.

And he does something delving into her, one of those little tricks he's got up his sleeve. A tiny circular twist of the pelvis when he's at his deepest. _Damn._ Like pushing a button. That sound, the moan, like a porno flick - that can't be her. Her nails sharp in his shoulders without her knowing how it happened.

Wants to clamp her eyes shut, her thighs taut around his waist. _How does he do that? _The slick sound of sex as he refuses to change tempo, lets her shiver and she might have moaned again. He certainly doesn't seem to mind. How he shows a row of teeth in that slow smile, like a naught secret. Pecan pie with powdery sugar and a trace of ginger. Sweet and spicy.

Supporting himself above her, putting the pressure on, gliding unhurriedly. His stomach muscles so taut, they look like they might rip. The root of him visible as he pulls up, relishing in the sight of him burrowing down again. Something primal about him like this. Dark against light, his tanned skin, that glow he was born with against her pallor.

The concentration on his face, giving it his all. A matter of pride to him.

He's in love with her. It's that simple. God knows why he still is. But she can see it in the shadow of apprehension in his eyes, how despite being inside of her, he still needs her approval. Still has that vulnerability, waiting for a verdict.

He slows the pace down almost to a standstill, presumably to extend, to make sure he lasts longer. The expert of delaying the unstoppable. Making her reach for him, tugging at his shoulders to get him back to moving. But instead he pulls at her, not satisfied until he's sitting on the side of the bed and she finds herself upright, astride his lap. His hands clamped around her buttocks and hers behind his neck, foreheads meeting.

He bends his head to look down at her, at the two of them joined together. Exhaling so briskly, a little warm gust hits her skin.

"Jayzus, Freckles..."

Her nipples puckered and vulgar when she peeks down, trying to see what he sees. Her pallid thighs clasped around his hips. She's suddenly conscious of how plump she is. Barely recognizing the paunch poking out like an unsightly doughy beer belly, brushing his rigid stomach. His large, bulky torso, the solid, smooth planes of his abdomen in front of her, not an ounce of fat. And she, round and pudgy, like a pale cushion. The contrast glaring, and the comparison is hardly flattering.

He nods and hums, studies her as if he is about to sculpt a copy, eyes slipping from face down. Fingers playing, following dips and hills, circulating her belly clockwise with such dogged attention, it makes her want to cover up. Tries to kiss away his concentration, but he won't let her. Pulls away with a smirk. Sweeps large, wide hands over ass, back up over her waist, shelving her breasts up as if he's casting a mould of her. She could swear she sees his mouth shaped around a silent; _'mine'_.

"I'm a bit... I've gained weight..."

Amused by her discomfort, at her lack of confidence with this new body. Something of a mean streak around the mouth, but the eyes, _his eyes_. Nothing malicious about them, the open, undiluted admiration he showers her with.

"You see me complaining, Princess?" Her swollen breasts, braced by his hands, spilling over and out. A sense of him asserting his possession, taking up the ownership.

Coaxes her closer, plowing into her with a demonstrative groan, just to prove his point. Too much stimulation, she's already too sensitive, too vulnerable. Touches his face, lets her fingertips drift across his cheekbones, outline his eyebrows, the tiny crows' feet. _Hers._ He's hers. The mist of sweat, an iridescent sheen to him. Trying to hold back, smothering any sound against his lips. How little it takes.

And how suddenly, unexpectedly the daze lifts and she finds him staring straight at her, all dimples and laughter lines. As if he brings his own sun, beaming at her.

His face like a map of joy.

"See, I told you, it ain't just sex," he mumbles, holding onto her. Driving himself from shallow depths to her innermost, rotating his hips so that she spasms against her will.

And he's right.

It isn't just sex, or attraction or the fear of being alone, even if it's all of that too. She can feel it too, something weighty, something solid. Complicated, tangled and messy. The two of them, like fools. Making love and gazing at one another.

_Matching grins, his and hers._

_This_. Is how the grass bends, revealing something new. How she can move on. Can be a little braver, a little less broken. With him, for him.

His fingers sinking into her buttocks, rocking her in minute little movements, setting her ablaze, strumming, reverberating through her. He angles himself so that he bores into her deeper, having her huffing out air heavily against his face. Kisses him sloppily, just pressing lips against lips. Nothing suave about it. The waves rolling in too hurriedly, too uncontrolled, the momentum building too fast, too effortlessly.

"That's all it takes, huh?" His voice whirring on her mouth as he pulls her down onto him, steering her with his hands. Unscrupulous how he grasps the command. The deliberately languorous friction, _oh hell,_ the friction with him and how he pulsates inside of her. "A little of _this_... and a little of _that._"

Can't speak. The combination of the position and the thickness of him brings on another vibrating wave. And the future is frightening, the unknown daunting still there is a lightness she hadn't expected. _Loves him_.

"Sure the tadpole ain't freaked out by all the ruckus? Sure this is alright?" he says quietly and all she can do is a feeble attempt at shaking her head and then a nod because his question is too damn complex.

Folding under to the feel of him, and just when she thinks she's reached the absolute vertex - he holds her against him, forcing her to remain perfectly still. Refusing to let her move while she contracts around him, so deeply immersed, she can think of nothing else but their labored breathing intermingling with the sound of the rain, slower now, a steady drip-drip-drip on the roof. The blinding light behind her eyelids.

Wedges her own eyes open to find his flitting closed, how struggles to keep them open, his lips falling apart. And she knows he is not far behind, would have already come if it weren't for that ridiculous macho pride. Wants control, wants to impress her - _even now_. Ladies first. His own sacred codex for sexual etiquette.

Desperation and longing making for a heart wrenching aphrodisiac. The thrusts growing more frenzied, how he lifts her up and draws her back down again. Creating a rising crescendo and he can't tease her when he's like this. His chest heaving, jaws clenched together. He's not so smug now, not in control. Clamors to get closer, his grip on her hardening. The hue and cry of a desire waiting a long time to be released.

His upper teeth digging into his bottom lip when he comes. Knows he holds back. Not a sound, no grunt, nothing, a mute climax, scrunching his face up as if in pain. He jerks against her, a tremble that can be felt from the inside out, like hot oil flushing through her, spilling into her. The convulsion, crashing him against the bed as he falls back to his side with her clasped to him.

Her breasts sore, pressed against him like that, skin slick between them. How he never just withdraws, stays inside of her. His hand clumsy and uncoordinated on her hair, on her back, making sure her thigh remains around his hip. Rubbing her up and down, a long stretch, from buttocks to neck.

"This better not be some drunken fucking delirium, girl," he murmurs, his mouth nuzzled beneath her jaw. Blood pumping so hard she has to strain to make out the words.

"It isn't." Fingers combing through his shaggy hair, up his neck. They linger like that, while their speeding, erratic pulses slowly return to a more steady cadence. Quiet and still, too scared to move. As if a sniper might take an aim at them if they dare shift a millimeter.

And she can't believe they're here. How they could go from their crude full-out war, from all out massacre to this. Forgiveness. Lying here in each others' arms. As if all that pain has been discarded in the mud below the porch. And she'll let the rain wash it away, will let it carry it all down hill. Bring it out to sea.

Her baby. The little yellow sandwich package. She wants to release him, let it go too. Wants to stop hating herself for failing him, and James for failing both of them. And lying there, listening to the rain and the wind roughing up the tree canopies above them she senses, something heavy at the base of her belly, nerves giving way to strength. A leap. She does, closes her eyes and takes a leap. Jumps off the cliff without a second thought.

"I never saw him."

"Who?" His voice scratchy, and sleepy as he looks down at her, eyes narrowing. Always on his guard, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"The baby... I couldn't. I didn't say goodbye... Everything you said. It's true. I... am a wuss."

And for an instant, he's just silent. Scrutinizing her, scanning her face for clues. She waits for him, to make some kind of flip comment. Jokingly dismiss it, get back to nestling playfully, doing the post coital goofing around that is safe, familiar.

But he doesn't chortle or shrug or break the eye contact. Reaches a big warm hand out and sweeps her hair out of her face. A hauntingly affectionate gesture, making her feel like she is worth it. Worth hunting down over and over again. Worth fighting for. His lips moving before any sound comes over them.

"We can still do it." The way he looks at her, she can't understand why she's never talked to him before. He doesn't laugh at her. Doesn't brush it off or make it seem as if it was something trivial." We can still find a way – you know. If you want to. Say goodbye."

She nods. She'd like that, the idea of formally putting him to rest. Let him be at peace. There is a new day, just around the corner. And she can sense it more than she can actually see it. How things might get easier, how they might learn to not be so afraid all of the time.

"Okay, then it's settled. We'll think of something, girl."

She leans in to kiss him again. Easier like that. Easier than all the talking. The slippery feeling of him still inside of her. But he pushes the pad of his thumb against her chin. Not done yet.

"Did you... well. Did you name it... _him_? Got a name?"

"No," she say too hastily. Because who the hell does that? Names something that isn't wanted, isn't expected. And it wasn't even a real child. Just an accident, a fetus, half-baked and unfinished. Not really a person. Though it was to her, he was someone.

Relieved when he lets it slide, lips narrowing just a hint. That slightly disbelieving raise of his eyebrows. But he leaves it be. Too raw, too painful to poke around in. Cocks his head back and throws his arm behind himself. His fingers trawling the mess of sheets and pillows beneath him, as if searching for something. And then he brings it up between them.

"Reckon it's a sign, Princess? It was just lying here chafing my ass. Gotta' mean something right" Lets his glance drift between the ring he's twirling between his fingers and her face. Something hopeful there that makes her liquefy.

"Maybe it means we should move inside. Someone could come along." She grins at him, but he's dead serious, all earnest and sincere. Ignores her weak attempt at keeping it light. Takes her hand and just pushes his ring onto her thumb. Just like that.

"It may look like a cheap trinket to you. But it fucking means something to me, Freckles."

She stares at that ring on her thumb, how it commands her full attention. Can see every little speck of peeling gold paint. The cuts and scratches. Phony perhaps, but looking strangely at home, as if the cheap, chipped old thing belongs against her pale skin. His fingers trailing her neck.

_Loves him then_. And what's more, she trusts him.

"And we ain't moving inside, Butternut. Ain't got nothing to be shy about. This is how we roll. - Au naturel. "

He maybe. But she is feeling vulnerable, lying out here in the open with only the yellowing mosquito net between them and the world. But just as she opens her mouth to protest, the sandpaper of his stubble scrapes her as his warm lips find hers again, disarming her completely. Obliterating any thoughts of modesty. Doesn't take long before she's on top of him and the temperature is rising. Squabbling to pull each other a little closer.

And maybe the building tension has to be broken, too soon for another go. He suddenly kicks his legs, struggling to free himself from the sheet wound around his foot in the chaos. Wallowing, like a hog in a mudhole. Has to use his hands too and when he falls back again, the bed quivers violently.

And. _Bham_.

Like something out of a sitcom. She can almost hear the giddy faux applauds when something snaps, fractures, just like that. A leg or stilt and they roll down in a big pile, hitting the side of the canopy laughing. A childish, whopping laughter muffled by his lips against hers, subsiding. The scruff of chin scratching her, his hands coming up to cradle her face, the tip of his nose against hers.

"Mercy... How cliché are we _now_, Freckles?" He does that thing, when he licks his lips, cheeks drawn up so that dimples emerge. "Looks like we busted the damn bed."

Seems he is quite content with that achievement, and not too upset with being a cliché either. How he rubs her hip with a certainty that takes her breath away. _Him and her_. Together. And he's beautiful like this, reclining like a sloth. His feet on the floor, in a mess of pillows and sheets, radiating warmth, smirking under heavy bedroom eyes.

Precious, priceless in his imperfection, a man ranging from the warmest amber, sun-kissed sand to the darkest black. A combination of careful lightness and murky depths where you have to watch your steps, hold on to something. And she might very well get her heart crushed, he might hurt her down the line, but this is now.

He's here and she is tired of feeling unlovable. Won't hesitate. No more.

"How do you figure that. Wrecked the darn bed and we ain't even gotten started on the vigorous stuff yet." Slaps his palm against the bed, leering at her. Can't go long without the sexual innuendos, the nettling her, getting in her hair.

"The bamboo must be rotten..."

Will tell him about the boat, the money, all of that. _Later_. If they play their cards right, live a simple life, stay out of trouble. They won't have to worry. And maybe she's naïve but she finds she likes this recklessness, the fact that he chooses her without having all those cards on hand. Risks it all, for her.

"Or maybe it's the way you've packed it on, Sweetheart. Can't blame the poor old thing for giving out." His caress dipping down her waist, and up again. Surveying her, indulging in a thorough inspection, hands mapping her out. Making her slip her arms in front of her chest.

"Hey, you're not exactly a featherweight yourself."

He bends her arms away, coaxing them around his neck. No place for shyness here. No way to hide from him. The way he just storms in, takes her over, stringing up gaudy Christmas lights along the way.

"I take offence to that Darling." Cracks a smile against her lips, the kissing, light and airy and she can't seem to pull away. Wants to dwell like this, stretch it out a little longer. The good-natured ribbing. Lodged at the foot of the broken daybed, reclined at an uncomfortable forty five degree angle. Him playing with her hair, grazing her mouth, little playful kisses." I'll have you know that I'm in prima shape, Sugarpop. Albeit a bit out of practice… It's been a while."

"A _while_ of what?"

"You know… It's been quite the dry spell... this, you and me."

It takes her a moment to catch on. Her brain too fuzzy, too fuddled to snap it up. But once she does, it confounds her. The ship, the Danes, all this time apart, there must have been someone. She extracts herself from the kiss.

"How long is '_a while'_?"

And he scowls at her, a little grumpy at having been interrupted, lips still in kissing mode, slightly parted, moist at the middle.

"Come again…?"

"How long?"

"Waddaya' think Darling?" Uncomfortable horizontal shrug. His eyes straying, hand roaming over her arm, swiping her hair behind her shoulders. Strangely fidgety." Yeah, don't look so damn smug, it ain't as if I haven't received plenty of offers."

"Don't doubt it... So why didn't you?"

Blinks as if he's trying to focus, as if he's just been roused from sleep, disoriented by her question. Maybe trying to think up a lie.

"What? Why didn't I _what_?" Absentmindedly brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. Trying to purloin another kiss, and then another. Strangely energetic, but then again, she was always the one who'd fall right asleep afterwards. He, the champion of pillow talk..

"You know… take someone up on an offer?"

"You _know_." Almost shy, that belligerent way of biting back when it's real.

"No... I don't know. And I want to hear."

Drawing her close again, as if it's easier to talk when they are flush against one another. Her cheek pressed against his prickly jaw. All man. Solid and massive against her, the sweet stickiness between her legs and his hand sprawled beneath her shoulder blades. The tickle of his lips at her temple.

"'Cause I fucking love you. That's why.."

_Loves him. _So hard to say. And so damn infernally easy to do.

The warmth of his skin, the sensation of muscles and nerves underneath velvety caramel shoulders. Squashing her in a bear hug. And though he is large and imposing in size, she knows he is anything but tough. That little boy who was once loved but hasn't been in a long time, insecure and high strung. She'll take care of him. Try to lessen that sense of being unwanted, unworthy. Handle him gently, carefully, as if he might break easily. And as if knows what she's thinking, he pulls his palm over her brow, heavy and safe. Holding her as if he's checking her temperature.

"We ain't got to be such hard-asses, Frecklebutt." His voice terrifyingly earnest. "There is enough shit out there, we ain't got to add to it."

Closes her eyes, enjoying how he skates his big clumsy hand between her eyes, over her forehead. Much like you might pet a large dog. Next he'll scratch her behind her ear and offer her a snack.

"Let's try not to mess up the youngin' too bad... " _The young one_. As if it's already a person, someone they just have to wait for. Wants to tell him to not count the chicks before they've hatched. But his confidence that it'll work out is infectious. _It might be. _"And let's be good to one another, baby-girl."

"Yeah."

Let's. She's tired of being hard and angular, always keeping him at arm's length, at holding back. Like he said; _fuck the consequences. _Wants to go home. And here he is.

He came.

Came shouting, screaming, raging at the unfairness - demanding to be loved by her. And though the things he said, cruel and all true. She's been fighting him so long, she's forgotten why she ever resisted in the first place. The answer so simple. He is the one. The one.

He'll never ask for more than she can give. His love is clumsy and gruff, like a buffalo trying to balance a tray of crystal on his head. All good intentions, ungainly and inept. Never perfect. A sponge who will soak up kindness with a frightening hunger. Will always clamber for approval, for affirmation. She knows that won't go away. But he's a man who will never make her feel worthless. Will never make her feel like she has to earn his love. Unconditional and generous, like everything about him.

She might not be Juliet, she'll never be that kind of woman. And she doesn't have to be. Not for him. There is something she can give him. Something only she has. All he ever asked of her, to open arms, pull down her fence. Let him in. She can love him. It's that simple.

_She can breathe now. _He's here.

…

No vows, no promises, just; _yeah_, soft spoken, with her usual verbal parsimony. And maybe he shouldn't let himself believe, perhaps he should keep a measure of apprehension. But he can't. It's all or nothing and he can't save on it, economize on the tidalwave that just washes over him, bringing him along.

Loves this, the aftermath, when nothing can hurt them When they are strong and brave and certain. Propped up against the busted bed, facing one another, basking, lazing around in the afterglow. Her on her side, one arm under her head, breasts squeezed together, the cleavage he just needs to dip his nose into. Smells her there. Cream skin, decorated with tiny little freckles, baby-chick soft. And his.

"James." His name on her tongue, the affection she puts into the vowels the softness in the consonants. "That. _This_ morning..."

Her hand wandering, moving over his arm, his shoulder, in no hurry – as if he's hers . Running along his jaw, back and forward, the rasping sound of his stubble. He grabs her, forcing her to stop. Her lips bee-stung and sweet, kissed crimson red when she forms her mouth around something yet to be said. Waiting to come out.

"What about this morning, baby?"

"I wanted to..."

"Wanted what?"

She stares back at him with an intensity that burrows through him, trying to say something without words, going out on a limb. _For him._

"I wanted to see, how it would be... you know, with you - "

He nods at her, his throat tightening, hoping she'll continue. And though she's just stuttering, not saying anything, it's like seeing the Haley's fucking comet. It doesn't come around all that often. A goddamn wonder, an unworldly phenomenon. Her. Trying to say something real. Not running, fleeing in the opposite direction.

"Go on..." he says quietly. _Don't give up now._ They're so close to something better. Something kinder, warmer, gentler. A brave new world.

"I wanted to. Feel different... Be different."

Hardly dares formulate the question for fear he'll provoke another flood-wave of that anger. But he needs more, needs confirmation.

"And do you...? Did it?"

Feels like such a dolt. Expects her to pull away, crack a joke or just roll her eyes. But instead, her face is calm, her gaze firmly on him. An undeniable warmth in the shape of her mouth, her relaxed rounded cheeks. A curtain being drawn to the side. A sense of seeing her, talking to her for the first time. Maybe it's about that piece of shit. The one who hurt her. Maybe she's telling him something – about her.

"Yeah." Exhaled as if she lets go at that moment, as if she signs herself over to him. Gives herself away, no reservation. The hair on his arms standing up. _Something special._

"Whatever floats your boat, Freckles..." he says, well aware that it's an inadequate reaction, of ridiculous proportions. Wants to squeal, lift her up, dance around. Her little 'yeah', giving him hope, possibilities spread out in front of him. "You do or you don't, I ain't ever gonna' make a big deal about it... I ain't that kind of man."

Not like_ him_, he wants to say. He'd never take a woman and break her. And he'll show her. He'll show her every fucking day if that's what it takes. How a man can be trusted.

"You won't be able to heal me, James." How her face tenses up, immediately, waiting for what he'll say.

"I know that," he says thinking that he'll find a way.

He'll replace the bad with good, make her take her guard down. He'll teach her that she can sleep like a starfish across the bed, open arms and open legs and no harm will ever come to her. She studies him, pursing her mouth as if she knows what's going on in his head. Ridiculous musings of healing her. Lips like succulent clefts of a mandarin, every little vertical line visible, a silky pink. The tip of her nose, that funny square bit. He doesn't care if the notion is improbable and naïve. But he will show her. How a man can be.

"I'm not – I can't always be _that _woman... I can't always be close."

"I don't care..." Though he does care, cares too much, there is nothing, absolutely zilch he can do about it. That's who she is. A little damaged, some pieces missing, not the ideal woman by any means. "Bring it on, girl. All your quirks and crap, I can deal with it. Those ugly duck feet of yours and the way you put a hog at shame at a dinner table…"

"I do not."

"Sure do... And how you snore like a beached walrus and climb trees like a damn monkey. I can handle it." He draws air in through his nostrils, fills his lungs up. Knows now, they'll be alright. They might never be able to speak like normal people, but they'll be fine. "You ain't got to be so darn special. You're mine, and that's good enough."

Wants to say so much more, but there is a limit to her patience, and it's just a knot away from here. He knows that. Her eyes downcast now, looking at the ring on her thumb, twisting it around while he picks with loose strands of her hair, wondering if the three-legged wreck of a bed could stand another round.

Wants to tell her that he sees her. And he likes what he sees. The whole picture. How she mothered Mamacita's little spud, must have loved that kid with her all. How she went to hell and back to try to bring her back to him. Losing that kid must have shattered her to pieces, and still - she did it. Selfless, a love that you can't fault. He can handle all of her baggage because he's seen how she trips up over and over again. Has seen how she always picks herself up again. She dusts herself off and goes on.

He knows that because of that ability, they'll hobble along. They'll manage somehow. Whatever happens, he'll be there, come hell or high water.

And she looks up at him with a doe-eyed delight, as if he's the best thing since sliced bread.

"It was never Jack. - _Never._" Not mumbled, not said to a wall. Straight to his face. Her fingers drawing a straight line from his forehead, down the bridge of his nose. Dipping at the cupid's bow and drifting over his lips to his chin. He has to take a mouthful of air, she just knocks him for six

Seizes her face, palms across cheeks, thumbs touching ear lobes and it almost hurts, the realization of what she's saying.

"I know, Baby-chick. I know." _A bald-faced lied. _He didn't. Not really. Always suspected that's who she wanted. But now. He feels it. How walls have been blown apart, rocks and debris falling all over the place. A big gapping hole. Allowing him free passage.

Kisses her forehead, her mouth, her cheeks. All over, like you might kiss a baby. Her face a little sticky, strands of wet hair glued to it.

And there is a moment when he has to lift her thigh off. Regretting it the instant he feels the cool air instead of her wet warmth. Pulls her up with him, tugging the sheet behind them. Sitting down wide legged in the doorway, he draws her down, her ass between his thighs. He yanks the crumpled sheet over his shoulders, draping it around them like a tent. Enfolds her in his arms, warm and peachy soft between his legs, her back cradled against his chest.

Arms across her belly, rounding the light slope. He spreads his hands as wide as he can, trying to cover as large an area as possible of the little dome. Capriciously trawling up and down, stroking her as if there isn't an inch of her that doesn't belong to him. Smoothing over the taut skin, the freakish new shape of her, trying to take it in.

This. Standing at a junction. Ignoring the highway, eyes set on the dirt road, so sure he has chosen the right way. He's not perfect, she is not like others, they might veer off the road and crash, might never get anywhere.

And he knows he doesn't complete her or fulfil her or any other stupid cliché. He's no Prince Charming and he damn sure is no Mr. Right. The kid is still a tentative, and he has no idea where his next pay check will come from or how he'll make a living for them. There won't be a wedding or anything resembling a normal life with her. There will be running and hiding and lying and stealing. There will be fistfights and tears. He will sulk and she will evade. Knows all this. And it's beyond stupid, irresponsible, all things idiotic to believe in the future.

But he _does_.

Because he can see, how there will be tenderness too. Sweet girly hands in his hair, someone who steals a sniff of his shirt in passing, small everyday things to delight in. And there will be someone there, at night when the shadows close in. A hand on his brow when he wakes up frantic, no knowing if he's a grown man or a boy hiding under the bed staring at a pool of blood and a pair of cowboy boots.

No guarantees. Not a single one. But he'll fight for this, every single day. He'll fight.

Takes in the view over the bay below the house, like a dream, a hallucination. A wide expanse of white beach and palm trees, all poignantly familiar. There can be no other place for them. The sea, dramatic waves, foaming where they break the reef. Salty air and warm sand, this is where they belong.

"You were right," she says out of the blue, straight out to the sea.

"I'm almost never right Freckles, you know that." Can't see her face, but he knows she is smiling. She bends her head so that her lips touch his forearm that he's got wrapped around her front.

"You are the _one_." A shy declaration, swooping down like a seagull. Just dropping it casually and he isn't sure what just hit him.

_The one._ Enough. And if she never says another thing. That's enough.

How she blows little puffs of air against his skin, a kiss on his wrist, right where he's burnt himself. Saying '_I love you' _without uttering a sound. And he takes the opportunity to sweep her hair away from her neck. He buries his face there. How they are. The kinship that ties them together, two rudimentary drawn characters, marred by their pasts and still here they are. There is no violence, no anger, no hate now. Just this. The two of them. Tenderly molding themselves around one another. Thorny edges and angular corners, kissed aside, caressed away.

It's as close to perfection as you can get, he thinks, with her crammed against him. And his heart is gapping wide open, you could throw all kind of shit there now, he'd not be able to refuse, resist a thing.

_Bada bing_. Woman, kid, a knee-buckling, humdinger of responsibility. Chuck it all in and a bag of chips, because he has no choice but to love her.

"So Freckles, you wanna' order a pizza or crack those crabs open?" _I love you too, _it means and he knows she can feel it the way she smiles into his arm and snuggles into him, his cheek against the top of her head.

Everything a surreal blue around them, like a film studio, scenery painted in Technicolor, no expenses spared. They sit there, perfectly still. The only sensation, breathing back to chest, her fingers tracing his knuckles. His hands owning her belly, like treasure under his palms. Holding onto it as if he's afraid it'll escape. Leg it out of there..

"Sonofabitch!" Startled by a tiny bubbly shift, something soft moving under the surface, like a fish trapped inside. "Sonofabitch, it moved! Christ! You feel that!"

"Yeah, of course." Knows she's rolling her eyes, but she can be all nonchalant about it, she's used to it. _Oh fuck._ He pushes his face down, drawing in the sweet and salty odour of her. Giving her a nudge with his nose. Savouring her, thinking that he's so head over heels lost in her, he'll never find his way back. Tries not to hyperventilate. It just hits him. Crap. It's a real kid in there. A real fucking kid. Not a fish skeleton like on those picture. A real freaking human being. Who can kick. He's so un-cool it's embarrassing. But this. Hadn't taken this in yet.

"Shit, we're gonna' screw that little freak up completely, aren't we?"

"Probably."

"We need to put down some rudimentary ground rules, Freckles." He kisses her, little sloppy childish kisses from her clavicle bone to beneath her jaw making her hunch her shoulders up, and the sheet fall down. "There will be no more doubting Thomas routine, not from you and sure as hell not from me, alright?"

Brushes his lips against the curl of her ear, finding her hands there under the sheet, lacing his fingers in between hers. Holding onto them doggedly. The edge of the ring cutting into his skin, intimate and awe-inspiring.

"We'll fight and we'll fuck, bitch and cry and we'll screw everything up, ten times a day…"

"Tempting, James."

"But we'll hang in there and we're going to make this work. And you know how, Honeypie?"

"No - but I'm about to starve to death so make it swift."

"I'll feed you, soon enough... " Those crabs are making come-hither eyes at him. Red and black from the grill, begging to be eaten. Can already picture it, sticky crab-juice dripping down cheeks and between fingers. _Yeah,_ he'll feed her. Soon. "So you wanna' hear the rest or not? The secret recipe."

"Alright, lay it on me. What's our big secret?"

"This. You and me. Every night, and I mean every _goddamn_ night, red hopping mad or just plain pissed - you will crawl into _my_ bed and you'll sleep in _my_ arms. And that's how it'll be."

"That's quite some speech Sawyer," she says smugly because this is who they are. Everything meaningful has to be wrapped up in an offhanded, snarky come-back. "But where exactly is '_your_' bed?"

She hitches her chin up at the heap of bamboo in front of them, smirking. Piece of crap, can't have been very sturdy to begin with. _Damn,_ he barely moved and it crumbled. He'll try to break her stupid bed indoors as well. Later.

It makes him gulp in air, thinking of it. _Tonight._ He'll sleep in her bed. Next to her, preferably in, on and around her. And every damn night after this.

"Alright, I'll put in an amendment. The dumb bed can be yours but the thing with the arms. Non-negotiable."

Her head tilted backwards, resting on his shoulder. She might have said _'yes'_, or nothing, he isn't certain, but he feels her agreement in the way her back melts against him. He straightens out his legs in front of him, reaching to gather her hair back, the wind blowing it in his face. Balmy and soft, and a little chilly.

"James," she exhales, and he thinks here comes another earth-shattering confession. As if the dam has been breached. Nothing stopping them now. This mind-blowing insight, that she's here. Really here. All of her, not a little piece, not only the hard little front she chooses to show him. Her, in her entity.

"Yeah?"

"That's the name... that's what I used to call him." Her voice the softest breeze. _The boy_. Their poor unwelcome baby. Has to keep from sniveling because it's too fucking sad, and her unexpected faith in him, worthless piece of trash that he is. Completely undeserved, and too damn beautiful.

And he thinks that if he doesn't achieve anything else in his miserable life, he'll at least make sure of this. The little freak in her belly. Will make it feel wanted, unquestionably, undeniably. He'll make the little freak feel so damn special its head will burst.

His and hers, a child sprung from bad blood. And he swears, it'll stop with them, he won't pass that legacy on. There won't be any raised fists in this house, there will be no violence. And considering how she is, he knows he has got his work cut out for him. They'll struggle with it, he knows that. He's not fool enough to believe that it will be all roses and speckled pups under the sunshine.

But she's here. Her unanticipated late arrival. He's waited so damn long for this, or maybe he'd given up the wait a long time ago.

Four years and enough heartache to nauseate the most die-hard romantic. She is finally here, in his arms. Almost a family. A notion he'd thought unreachable, impossible. Somehow she's pushed herself away from the past, has managed to free herself from whatever darkness kept her from allowing him in. She has sprung the door wide open for him, turned the lights on.

And implausible as it is; she doesn't want the ghost of some boy she used to love, not some idealized antidote to her father, not Jack, _nobody_. But.

_Him._

"And by the way, the whole ring slash shitty proposal fight ain't nearly over, just on temporary hold. We'll get back to that crap after we've had some grub."

"Not if you wanna' live."

"Pretty darn sweet how you're so eager to commit."

Loses his thread completely when she twists her head so that her lips meet his. And hell, he can feel her love when she kisses him. For real.

Ambrosial. Bizarrely innocent and sweet like a long lost childhood memory. Pink spun sugar, carousels and soda pop. Like kissing a girl with pigtails, smelling like bubblegum and strawberries in the high grass behind the hotdog boot. And somewhere there, he tells her. How he really feels. Might have said it a couple of times, hell, he doesn't care. Those words stand up well to repeated usage. He'll wear them out. Will make her so immune to them she'll sigh them in her sleep.

Has an absurd optimist brewing inside. He'll let it simmer and set. Because he can see it now. How they can be a family, in their own fucked-up way. He will push aside the jealousy, swallow the insecurity, battle the doubts the best he can. He feels her now with her warm body between his legs.

_You and me._

They might splatter against the ground, but maybe, just maybe they'll sprout wings, make it work. Stumbling, fumbling, he'll find a way. And maybe this time they can become something more than their lowest common denominator, more than the sum of all their flaws.

The worst thing that could have happened. _The best. _The fucked up mathematics of him and her. He'll take the ugliness of them, stains and scars, the lot of it. And he'll turn it into something beautiful. Two negative forces, two screwed up numbers. Put them together and they are - _home_.

They sit like that, clumped together. Like young lovers, each listening to the breathing of the other. Something grave, something large between them. The scented air swooping in between the bougainvilleas and the cinnamon trees, dancing around them, making the strawberry pink petals swirl. The sea breeze picking them up and it sends a rush of belonging coursing through him.

_This is right._

"Are you done running, Kate?" he asks even though he knows the answer.

"Harder." she whispers. And it's such an odd thing to say, like something demanded during sex, he thinks until her hands on his forearms hint at what she means. He tugs her as close, as tight as he dare, afraid he'll squash her, pressing his hands over her stomach hoping to feel that freakish thing again. Holding her hard, _hard_, against him.

That's all she asks of him. No other way it could be. Him and her. Lovers of the unlovable.

And there are no more words to be said. Nothing more that has to be done, no speeches of forgiveness, no long explanations or plans for the future. All else, said with fingertips and hands. With the susurration of his skin against hers. Huddled together, looking out over ocean. Keeping their heads down, his chin resting on her shoulder. The swaying branches of the cinnamon trees against the indigo of the night coming down like a drape around them. The frogs serenading, noisily celebrating the rain. Insects joining in. the jungle behind them, bustling with life.

And if she's bent and broken and fraying at the seams, he can't see it. Sees only her beauty, how she can love in spite of never being loved. How she takes what's imperfect, what's deeply flawed and makes do. He'll fan this tenderness. A crop, sprouting from the tiniest seed, planted on the sly among hostile fields. Fury bending down to soft lips and a promise of a future. He'll make it grow, make it overshadow the past. He'll love them whole. And there is nothing special about it, how the puzzle fits together. Like any man and woman, nothing special about it at all. Remarkable in it's simplicity, how two jagged pieces can fall right into place. Can feel un-alone, just like that. Not orphans, not unwanted, not disfigured or hopeless. Nothing special. Just, two wrongs, made right.

And he might be ugly inside, worthless to most – but not to her. _Not to her._

The two of them, unlovable no more.

...

_There it is._

_Argh… Too much? _

_I know I've gone overboard with the twenty four hour non-stop fight/love/sex/making up scene. It just seemed they'd deserved a serious romp after all the crap they've been through the last 40 chapters. So... Too little? Too smutty, too fluffy, too rainy, too boring? Just too damn long? Please, leave a review, tell me what you thought._

_A footnote: I can't stand stories where victims of abuse (of any form) are magically 'healed'. So when Sawyer says he'll 'love them whole', that's more a reflection of his inherent optimism than Kate's ability to just 'get over it'._

_I'll go and bury my head in the sand for a little while. There will be an epilogue, just because I want to wrap it all up (oh heck, who am I kidding. I'm not ready to let them go yet – little afraid of what they might do if left to their own devices.) It's not ready by far yet, so it might be a little while, but it's coming. Promise._


	43. Epilogue

_SORRY! For taking so damn long with the epilogue. It still isn't the way I wanted it but what the heck. I can't keep it on my laptop screen for all eternity._

_Thank you seems insufficient for the wonderful feedback you have given this story, but it's all I've got. Much love to you for following through to the bitter (or not so bitter) end. _

_The first epilogue, I've ever written – and to be honest – it's more like an extra rambling chapter than a proper epilogue – and so disgustingly long I won't even apologize for it. And also, due warning: This is a big fat cliché from beginning to end. I couldn't help it. I thought since I did the pregnancy thing, I might as go the whole nine yards. And end result; well... Hope you don't choke on all the soppy fluff stuff._

_Rated M ( NC17) for mature content, language the usual stuff. _

_Disclaimer: Not mine. Not really._

...

_**Epilogue**_

...

That first night together. Him and her._ Like two thieves._

Hoping to have gotten away with the heist of the century. Looking over their shoulders, scanning the horizon for trouble. Ready to leap at the smallest sign of a threat.

Her bed, made in freshly laundered linen. It doesn't take long for them to mess those sheets up. Twisted, crumpled and bunched up at the corners and the two of them, clutched to one another. Rolling gently, sleepily, making love only half awake. How their bodies know exactly what to do, how they find their way in the darkness. Falling asleep on and in one another, clasped to each other, not knowing where one body ends and the other begins.

No air between them in the sultry tropical night, sleeping, sweating profusely, pressed stomach to stomach. So close he can feel her pulse through the rounded belly.

He doesn't tell her he loves her that night. But it's there, in ever caress, every touch. In how they wake up over and over again, sleeping fitfully, moving, shifting. And if he's not inside of her, he has to be slick against her. Has to make sure she's still there, reassuring himself. All those nights when he'd trawled a sleepy hand across the bed-sheet next to him and found nothing, no one.

But she's here now. _Mercy._

The sun has barely peeked over the ocean when he startles awake. Mellow and sore and freakishly blissful.

"Good morning, sunshine," she says before he has a chance.

She lies there watching him. Her face wide open in a way he isn't used to and it strikes him how goddamn fragile they are. They have no plan, no tricks up their sleeves. This is all they have. He reaches to stroke her cheek with his knuckles, sweeping back her hair. Fingers lingering on her ear.

"You've got a phone up here - in these hoods, baby-girl?" he mumbles, trying to kiss her through the words. She holds his hair back, both hands on the top of his forehead, nose to nose.

_In love. _Dumb as it sounds. He's in love. In the most clichéd, most banal way possible. Rose-tinted glasses, butterfly flutter. The whole shebang.

"There is one down in the village. At the post office... Why?"

He raises himself up on his elbow, sliding a hand down so that it curves over her pot-belly. Who'd have thought? _Him and her. _At peace. Weapons buried under a copious amount love-making.

"Nothing. Just fixing to do something, is all."

He can't explain why it can't wait until tomorrow or the day after or another week. Only knows it has to happen now, _today_. He's had enough of waiting around, making excuses, wasting time. So instead of slipping his fingers down between her legs, he plants a big wet kiss on her naked shoulder and a little pat on her belly.

She looks disappointed when he hoists himself up, and gets out of bed. Though God knows why. She must be feeling pretty darn raw. _Hell_, people aren't made for that much friction, not all squeezed into just one night. He is feeling quite rough himself and he's not the one with the sensitive lady-parts.

"So Jacko', baby girl... How do we contact the old quack? Got his number per chance?"

"I'll... I'll have to check."

Knows she's lying. Of course she'd have his number. Doc wouldn't have parked her out here on a practically deserted island without means of getting in touch with him. He decides to drop it. _For now._

He makes his way to her little kitchen, wants to make her breakfast. And as he stands there scratching his two day old beard, she sneaks up behind him, kissing his neck in passing. Turns to find her dressed in nothing but a sleeveless top and underwear.

She bends down to fiddle with the valve on the gas tank. Proceeds to turns the cooker on, putting a pot of water on.

"I'll cook you something. You can…" all bashful and he notices a pink hue around her mouth, across her cheek from his stubble.

And then she stands there. Arms hanging by her sides. Suddenly awkward. Requiring a different set of skill, like this, out of bed with her clothes on.

"You don't know what to do with me now, do you?"

Smiles sheepishly at him, shaking her head so that the matted waves fly across her shoulders. Has an idea. Now or never. Remembers a place he's spotted on the way up from the harbor.

"That's alright, baby-girl. I have some errands to run. Then we'll spend the afternoon in bed. Make up for lost time."

"Oh, you have some 'errands to run'?You just arrived. What kind of errands could you possibly have? Here?"

He raises his eyebrows at her, delighted to see her flustered and a bit out of balance.

"The kind of errands that are _private,_ Freckles."

She gets a few eggs out of the old fridge. Cracking them open in the pan. No butter, no nothing. _Hah_, she's going to burn them, for sure. Playing the master chef. And he likes to think it's for his benefit.

She sniggers but he bets she's racking her brain trying to figure out what on earth could ever be _private _for him. Stirs the eggs vigorously with a wooden spatula, disposing them swiftly on a small plate. And it's impossible now, to keep his hands for himself. The little top, too tight, too short. Riding up, the hem, straight across the bellybutton. Like a sexy version of Winnie the Pooh. But he won't say that. Has enough survival instincts left to keep his big stupid mouth shut for once.

The way she was last night. Soft, pliable, shaping herself to him like clay. And he's spent his fair share of nights with her. But never like this. He'd barely had time to enter her before she'd come. Forcefully like a mountain brook in spring. Fast, clear and unstoppable.

Can't resist rubbing up from behind. Arms around her, placing his palms there, right between shirt and underwear, on the stretch of bare skin. Ah. Hell. He's worn out, otherwise he'd have done something about it.

"Sweet dreams?" Can't help thinking of her last night, making love like it was going out of style.

"Hmmf." Doesn't have to see her face to know that her cheeks are flush and her eyelashes downcast.

"I like you." It just drops out of his mouth somewhere near her ear. Like the love declaration of a preschooler. Wanna' play? But it's true. He likes her, like being with her. Likes how she is, who she is. And most of all, he likes to discover this new world with her. Him and her. Like travelers to the unknown, badly prepared, not packed, not experienced enough for this journey, but giddy, happy. Excited.

And hell, someone up there must love him. Kissing the side of her neck. Wants this to be everyday stuff. Making out while making breakfast. But he's got stuff to do. Releases her. There will be time for that later, getting hot and bothered over the kitchen counter.

"Big, heavy-duty affinity for your faith, Freckles?" he asks while he takes the water off the gas stove.

And they're like a little well trained team, he thinks when she places two cups in front of him. Passing the coffee jar. Harmony. Who would have thought?

"What?" She stirs in the coffee and he the sugar. Adds an extra spoonful for her, a little extra sweetness for his baby.

"Just getting to know each other better. So, are you...? Big on God?"

She takes the outstretched cup from him, avoiding his eyes as if she's not sure if he's making fun of her or not.

"Not exactly. Not anymore... You?

He can't say why, but it makes him sad that she has lost her faith. Things are shitty enough, and it must be easier to believe in _something_.

"Nope, can't say I am. That fickle old bastard ain't ever done me any favours." He adds a bit of cold water to his coffee and sweeps it while she stands there, arms crossed over the little Pooh belly.

"So...What's up with the religious pondering, James?"

"Nothing, Honey Bug... Like I told you, just getting to know you better, is all."

"So not brooding over the sins of the flesh then?" _Oh,_ he likes her, but he fucking loves her when she does that. Gets that squinty eyed look, teasing, taunting. His face splitting up in a smile so wide it hurts.

"Well, nope. Reckon I'm pretty darn fond of those..." He sweeps by her, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before he backs out. "So... Ain't you gonna' say you'll miss me Honey?"

She mouths 'fuck off' to him but he can tell she's unable to stop the corners of her mouth from stretching upwards.

"So... we ain't gonna' be that kind of couple, huh? No whispering sweet nothings, no tearful goodbyes, no romance huh, hard-ass?"

"You've got it, Buddy. Just go."

...

She'd be lying is she said she wasn't scared. But scared in the way you are on a rollercoaster. Stomach moving up and down, in jitters, an excited, keyed-up apprehension.

He disappears for what seems like hours but perhaps is no more than one. Can't explain this, but she can't be far from him for long. Not now when he's finally come back to her. It doesn't seem entirely real yet, and she needs the reassurance.

When he finally comes trudging up the hill, his unbuttoned shirt billowing like a hot-air balloon around him, she's sitting on the steps waiting.

Wants to come running across the clearing, throw herself on him, drag him right back into the house. But he has that stern, terse face that makes her innards freeze up. _Something's wrong_. Something didn't turn out the way he'd hoped. For being a con-man he can't hide his feelings for crap.

"What happened?"

"_Nothing_ happened."

He stops a few paces away from her and gives her a strange once over. Not the sexy trailing eyes sticking like melted sugar to her curves. _No_, this is brisk and business-like, taking in her customary, elastic band pajama pants and an old tunic. A little nod, meant more for himself than to her.

"Then why do you look like _that?_"

"I ain't looking like _nothing_. Come on, put those sandals on." Kneels down by her feet beneath the stairs and swiftly manhandles her feet into the cheap rubber flip-flop she uses around the house. His fingers soft when they sweep her ankles, avoiding looking at her. She strains against the hold he has on her fingers. But he just drags her to her feet. "Don't fret, girl. Just hustle you're ass along. We're gonna' take a little walk."

The soreness between her legs, sweet tenderness making itself reminded with every step. Honey and chilli-pepper, and the raw feeling of not having gotten anywhere near close enough. Already yearning for him again.

They hurry on down the dirt road to the village and he doesn't even bother being friendly to the children who gather in swarms to gawk at the tall ugly white man with the big nose. Some of the smaller ones shriek and run off in a cloud of dust as he lumbers on by. But his face is grim, seemingly completely unaware of causing any kind of commotion.

He comes to a halt in front of the little crumbling village mosque, pushing the gate open with his foot.

"Hey, this...? No. I don't want to get in trouble with the villagers, I mean -"

He just gives her a noncommittal grunt. Jostles her through the garden path towards a front porch covered entirely in white bathroom tile.

"Did you hear me? What's _this_?" She's quickly losing her patience with his crap.

"It's a goddamn _church_, now hush. " He sends a shriveled old man a good old 'howdy' salute. Two fingers snapped jauntily against his brow. Grinning dumbly as if he's in his full right to barge in here. And to her great surprise he toes off his shoes, nodding at her to follow suit.

"It's _not_ a church, James." Has no idea why she obeys but she does. There is something about him today, all soft and gentle in action – stingy with words. The dynamic has changed.

"Ain't no need to be smug, Freckles. I might be an dumb old hick but I know what it is, alright."

"I have to _live _here... And I don't want to piss these people off. I'm sure we're not supposed to be here."

"Quit stalling, Peanut... This is exactly where we're supposed to be and we're not keeping nobody waiting. It ain't polite."

A woman appears from out of nowhere, throwing a white scarf over her head, wrapping the ends around her neck while she tries to move away. The woman moves out of her way but he's right there, slides in front of her and puts his hands on her shoulders, effectively stopping her from throwing the scarf off.

"Wha... _Who_ exactly is waiting?"

Forces her to look him in the face and she knows she ought to be used to him by now. To that burning look, the needy desire, as if they're in bed, not standing outside a public building bickering about some stupid scarf.

"The head honcho. - Just fucking _trust _me, goddamnit."

He sighs as if she's an annoying child who's keeping all the grown-ups waiting. Bundles her inside with a series of less than graceful movements. Tugging and shoving while she is being purposely slow, digging her heels.

"Not moving an inch until you tell me what the heck we're doing here."

He bends closer, his lips on her ear through the thin cotton scarf:

"Just a fine old Southern tradition. Ain't nothing to be scared of."

…

Shepherds her along through a narrow hallway with pillars. Isn't going to give her a chance to protest. This _is_ going to happen. He's quite willing to risk life and limb. But it _is _happening, goddammit.

"It's traditional shotgun wedding, _alright_. Now will you just fall in line for God's sake."

"Fine old Southern tradition my _ass._ And… you didn't think to ask before…? You sonofabitch! You set me up. This is -"

"Hush. And I _did _ask."

"And I said _'no'_." Gritting her teeth, looking like she's being led to the guillotine.

"_Did_ you? Well, I ain't hear you. Now shut up and follow me. It ain't gonna' kill you, Freckles. And I'm just being practical. Someone's got to be for Pete's sake."

_Famous last words_.

"You sneaky sonofabitch! When did you even have time to arrange anything?"

He can't believe she lets him get away with it. That she doesn't just smack him over his bug idiotic head and storms out.

"Just _now._ A little neat tip and they were surprisingly cooperative. Happy to add another faithful to their folds."

"You converted!"

"_Yup. _This morning. Told you I had an errand." No skin off his nose. Might as well be this God as any other, it's all the same to him. He ain't planning on getting religious anyway. "And you're already a Muslim. Check your goddamn papers. Katia Subroto."

"You are insane. And I'm not dressed for -" She pinches at the cotton shirt she's wearing. Not exactly fancy but what the heck, at least it's white. Though why the hell that would matter, he has no idea. Not much point in pretending she's a virgin, what with the tummy in the air and all. " You lying, conniving _bastard_."

"I'm pretty sure that ain't a nice thing to say in here."

In spite of the precursory protests, she is shockingly meek. Figures he might have loved the sting out of her last night. Maybe that's the way to deal with her, tire her out, make her mellow and cooperative. He smiles to himself when he considers this, the perfect solution, everybody wins. Keep her so goddamn satisfied and buzzed on serotonins, she'll just say yes to everything.

"Okay then, explain to me how you figure this will work? What's your brilliant plan, buddy?"

"I just want _my_ name on that fucking paper. End of this discussion. Come on, hop along now."

"What _'paper'_?"

"It'll be _James Ford_ on that damn birth certificate. So _if_ or _when,_ they lock you up - that little bugger ain't packed off to some crummy orphanage in Banana Village."

"It's all fake. It won't be legal… Won't mean anything." Narrowed eyes, like a cat about to swoop in on her prey. He nods, not because he agrees but just so that she'll run out of steam. Quit her ranting. "So this is just for the birth certificate, that's it?"

"Damn, right. And for the conjugal visits too. And if that doesn't work out, I can always get another three wives."

"Hah. Yeah, you won't need them after I'm done with you."

Knows that somewhere there, he has won her over. She's just going through the motions. Has to protest, play tough and steely, that this isn't something that means anything.

"I love you too Baby cakes. "

They are seated at what looks like a regular desk. Two men, skin like bark, cap hanging off the back of their heads, one on each side of them. Sawyer does the introductions with a flourish of the hand in each direction.

"My best man – and your maid of honor, Cupcake."

"How can this be valid in any sense?"

"Hey,_ he_ ain't bothered – I ain't bothered," he says nodding towards the little man dressed completely in white, with a prayer cap and a sparse little white beard to boot. Seems pleased as punched with the two new converts added to his flock. " Come on, don't be a spoilsport. Lets tie the knot, little Darling"

"Okay, you stubborn sonofabitch," she snaps. "Have it your way."

_And that's it._

He waits for the rest, some smartass comment to get her out of this or some outrageous condition - but it never comes. Instead she stands there clipping with those eyelashes like fucking Bambi on dope, fingering the fringe of her headscarf and she looks like the Holy Virgin Mary in some stupid nativity play.

"Just follow my lead, baby-girl... We'll ace this wedding baloney. - And suck in that damn pot-belly. Don't want them to think we've had supper before saying grace." He squeezes her hand once before he lets go, leaning in to whisper. "'cause you and me… we've sure eaten a lot of supper, haven't we, Freckles?"

The main guy takes his hand across the table and starts reading some gibberish he obviously wants Sawyer to follow.

_So he does_. In his thick red-neck accent that probably makes it all invalid. The cleric crosses his arms over the table, taking hold of both of their hands, one in each and recites something.

Glancing at her, he finds her eyes already on him. A little shy smile before she repeats the words, her voice is like balm, how it caresses him. Soft and melodic and not fighting him anymore. The timid stolen looks at each other. Like children, an innocence that this newness brings.

_Fuck._ They're really doing this.

Some fellow standing behind them, spreads a white piece of brocade, some kind of veil over both of their heads, like a little tent, joining them together. A document pushed forward towards them to sign. He first, and though her name is fake, the ring is cheap crap, he feels it then.

How he signs his life over to her. _Here, take it._

A lump in his throat when he looks at her again, holding the pen between stubby fingers, signing her alias with a flourish. _Shit._ And he might be a sentimental fool, maybe it means nothing in reality. Maybe it's an insult to all that is sacrosanct.

But he doesn't believe that.

Because although it's outlandishly foreign and he has no clue what they're saying, he feels something spreading from a profound spot within his chest. As if someone had placed a handful of hot coal in there, warming him up. And when her face cracks up into the widest, goofiest smile, the white veil framing her, corny and tacky – it _does_ mean something.

It means _everything_ to him.

He digs in his shirt pocket. He only has the one ring, that cheap gold-painted trinket. But it's fake no more. The way his fingers are slippery, refusing to obey. Nervous, fumbling badly, trying to slip that battered old thing over her finger.

None of the shoddy, quaint circumstances matters. Blessed by a stranger, by a God not their own. It doesn't matter. This is it. Her and him, to have and to hold and fuck up for all eternity. _As real as it gets._

He exhales, not realizing until he does that he'd been holding his breath. Wants to kiss her, wants to hoist her up across his shoulder and run back up the hill with her, but it doesn't seem the done thing here. So they shake hand with every Tom, Dick and Jerry at the mosque, impatient and eager to be out of there before someone nabs them by the neck and say; _hey_ – you can't do that!

_Whaddaya know,_ they just did.

But no one seems to find their presence in the little mosque odd. Quite the opposite, like frigging celebrities. All the men smiling, glimmering white teeth and hearty slaps on the back.

He's got a little green book saying she's _his_ and if he doesn't feed her for a few months he'll be fined 50 cents or the equivalent. They grin at one another, dumbly as they stagger out into the sunlight again.

_How fast can two happy imbeciles stumble up a hill? _

Pretty darn speedy as it turns out. They walk briskly at first and in the end they break out into a run. Hand in hand, puffing and panting by the time they reach the clearing of the house.

Not a word shared between them. Because there are none.

By the house, not even able to wait until they've made it up the porch, shaded by the overhanging roof, he steals a kiss – a first. Has her backed up against the wall, sheltering her face with both of his hands. Kissing the perspiration off her upper lip.

...

They have barely gotten inside when they hear voices coming from outside. He's beyond annoyed because _hell_, he has waited for an eternity for her. He snatches a sarong from her chair and wraps it around his waist, tucking in the edge.

She scrambles to find some clothes, while he lumbers out on the porch ready to give whoever it is a piece of his mind.

Stumped. Spilling in, one after another, clomping up on the porch. _Miles, Jack, Henry, Captain Grumpshaft._ And little hefty Ni Luh coming through last, lugging a big-ass picnic basket.

"What the fuck is this? Intervention in cloud cuckoo-land?" driving a hand through his hair, playing nonchalant. But he could have been knocked down with a feather.

Ni Luh embraces him, but the men just glare as if he's toxic waste washed up on their paradise island.

"_Sure._ You can call it that." Miles half-closed lazy eyes, cool bastard, hides his surprise well. Sawyer doesn't like the feeling at all. They all plonk themselves down, uninvited. The daybed has been shoddily propped up with a wooden crate where the leg broke off.

"Nice arrangement," Miles says and takes a seat on the wooden bench by the wall instead. Jack sits down next to him.

"By all means, just blunder on in!" He hollers back towards the door for her." Come on out Freckles, it's the goddamn cavalry."

A few seconds later she emerges looking wonderfully messed up and it comforts him a little. How she blushes from top to toe. Clothes thrown on in haste, all crumpled and askew. Wants to rub it in Jack's face.

_Hah_. He got her, in the end. _He won._

Jack offers her a strained smile and a quick hug.

"_He's_ back?" he asks her quietly against her ear, but he snaps it up. The disapproval clearly implied.

"Yeah, _he_'s back Doc," Sawyer says. Makes himself broad, always the same between them. And Jack sure doesn't look too damn excited to see him. Sawyer sits down in the doorway itself, watching how Kate squeezes in next to Ni Luh who throws a plump arm around her like some mother hen.

"We came by earlier and no one was home. Where have you two been?" The question thrown at Kate who flushes the sweetest shade of scarlet. She was getting hitched. That's where she was. A silly urge to shout it from the treetops. _Him and her. _Jack is nobody to her.

_Nobody._

"She was with _me_. What's it to you? You told me to step up and here I am."

"Not a minute too late," Jack says looking him in the eyes. That sneaky little shit, bet he was already making the moves on her again. Not happy to have his game interrupted – _again._

Opens his mouth to bite back when she come sup to him, clutching his fingers hard. _Calm down_. Alrighty then, he'll be civil – for _her_ sake. Needs Jack's goodwill more than ever. Can't afford to aggravate him. Actually forces his mouth to turn into what he imagines a very friendly polite smile.

"Look Jack, I need a word." Glances at Henry and Miles, both men sitting with their arms crossed over their chests. He isn't exactly Mr. Popular around here. "In _private_."

"I'm not in the mood, James."

_Not in the mood. _Not in the frigging mood – that's what he says. The hate, there is no mistaking it. A foul glare at him, ignoring Kate for a change. So much for getting Jack to extend him a loaner.

"So have you told him?" Miles says to Kate and he really hates to hear those words. Hates to be on this side of ignorance. "About Hugo's will?"

"What about Hugo's _will _, baby-cakes?" he asks and Kate actually cracks a smile at him. Relief washing over him at her blossoming face. It can't be something bad if she looks like that.

"Dude… Hurley left Jack the _'Merdeka' _in his will_, _and well… " Henry pipes up, clearing his throat.

"_That_ baby-faced sonofabitch had a will? What was he? All of twenty five?"

"Well, perhaps he thought something might happen to him Jimbo." Miles all snide and off-handed. "And _look_, something _did_."

"He gave Jack his frigging boat?" His scalp itching. He draws his nails against it, scratching like a flea-ridden dog. "Why the hell would he give Jack the damn boat?"

"Not for Jack, you _dimwit_." Miles hitching his chin towards Kate. "For _her_."

And Sawyer is just sitting there, his mouth wide open, like a useless fly-catcher. Can feel Hugo's big pawed blessing over his thick skull. He's fucking saved them, saved her and the little spud. Once again, he's provided them all a future, even from beyond the grave.

Hurley's kindness makes him want to snivel and cry. Not something he understands. Wants to examine it under a microscope, find some kind of ulterior motive. Some damn thing, explaining why _he_, Hugo Reyes, would care one hoot about any one of them. Wants to hear that the big guy was secretly in love with her, that he had something to gain.

Because the concept of a selfless gift – it doesn't fit into Sawyer's universe, any which way you try. Horizontally or vertically or rolled into a little ball, it just doesn't fit.

"Well I'll be damned. You don't think you could have told me that, at some point? Before I went and made an ass out of myself."

"Not so fun to be kept out of the loop, is it James." _Doc, _the arrogant bastard.

"There is still a lot of work to be done with everything and –" Henry starts out but is cut off by an impatient Miles.

"What Henry is trying to say is, if you want in - you better work your lazy tush off to turn that resort into a fucking gold-mine for her. Don't let him down, asshole"

"We trying to get it up and running." Ni Luh trying to soften down the conversation a notch, that woman should get the damn Nobel peace price. She obviously has a knack for diffusing loaded situations. " So Mr. Miles is general manager, Mr. Henry in charge of finance and paper works and I am cook."

And the true commander in chief, Sawyer bets.

"And you'll do everything you fucking can to help out," Miles says. Obviously relishing in a chance to boss him around.

Well, let him have it because Sawyer is so freaking relieved, how the pieces have just fallen into place he could weep. _She's here._ Safe. She has them, this group pf freaks, a messed-up, dysfunctional family at best, but a family none the less. They've established a little colony here. And shit, to think how he almost missed out on this. Almost let her go. – They're going to be alright now.

"So all of you here, huh? Captain Hook, you're along for this business venture as well?"

"Ya."

_Talkative bastard._ But the way, Ni Luh stretches a hand out to squeeze his shoulder warms him up to the grouchy old cod. Imagine that, huh. All this time, they've been running the frigging Love Boat, and they didn't even know it.

And then they all sit there stiffly, glancing at one another. She, all prim and proper. Wants to shout it at her; '_tell them'_. Tell _him_. Mouths it at her: _'married'._

She frowns, knits her brows together and pretends to concentrate on something in the air. He gives it another go. Shaping his mouth and hitching his head sideways towards the village. There is no way she doesn't get it. _Married._

_Tell them._

When she still chooses to ignore him, he slides his fingers shaped like an 'o' back and forward around his ring finger. _Tell them, damn it! _Miles raising his eyebrows, looking from looking from him to her, back and forward, surveying the two of them.

"So, you two love-birds a couple _today_?" Miles ask, leaning back so that he can sort of glance down at Sawyer.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"You look very _'coupley'_ and all, with the sexually explicit flirting, the '_let's go_ _get it on'_-sign you're doing."

"Yeah, we're a goddamn couple – today! What's it to you?"

"It's just not very reassuring seeing as how you two '_sweetheart_s 'last about as long as a mouthful of helium."

Henry says nothing but Sawyer detects the tiniest little nod.

"_Really_ Henry! _Really_? You wanna' go there, Buddy-boy?"

Turns to her and she's just clear-eyed and calm, meeting him head on. Has no fear now. They'll be fine, he knows it now. She blinks once and then she turns towards the others.

"We got married." Blurts it out and he almost keels over, his world-order blown to pieces by her timid voice. _She._ She said it. And the little shy smile on him, eyelashes modestly lowered. As if this is what she wanted, some fake last minute ditch at hooking up, with a big fat loser.

Ni Luh is the only one who reacts remotely like one ought to. She comes fluttering around the table, bringing Kate into a big, warm hug. Cute as a bug's ear, both of them. _Sonofabitch._ He's married! He's fucking gone and married her. She's right. He must be completely off his rocket.

"_Good._" That's all she says and he reckons that sums it up pretty well.

"Happy now, _Doc_?" He blows his chest up, knows he looks like a conceited peacock, but hell, he feels like the man. _The man._

"Yeah... yes. It was about time you did s_omething_ right."

Sawyer opens his mouth to say something when Miles shoots up.

"As delightful as it is to sit here while you two have another one of those fucked-up triangular pissing contests again, I think I'll leave you to it. Good luck with that, Jimbo."

"What _he _said," Henry adds and others follow suit, even Jack who is clenching his jaw, looking like he's trying to refrain from flying across the table to throttle Sawyer. Ni Luh herds the hoopla-boys off the porch. He doesn't have to turn to Kate to know that she's glaring at him.

They watch the whole flock disappear down towards the village and he's a bit hesitant to address her again. Knows he's behaved like a total ass.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Hands on hips. He is looking for a way to duck, avoid this discussion. Sticks his finger in the pot Ni Luh left them, licking the sauce off it. Some spicy stuff, cinnamon and clove.

"With _me_?" Plays dumb, knowing damn well she won't let him get away with it.

"I'm not doing this again James. No more."

"Doing what?" He looks for something to dip in the sauce, bread or a shrimp cracker or something.

"Lay off Jack once and for all... In any case, he's met someone, he's engaged for God's sake. There is no need for you to act like an insecure jerk."

That stuns him. Jackass _engaged_ – imagine that. It makes him so frigging relieved a spontaneous laughter escapes him.

"The sly sonofabitch, when? Where? Who?"

"Met her in Bali. She's a lawyer, from Singapore. He took on this medical consultant job there. Two weeks in he tells us he's gotten engaged so I figure it's going well. He's only here for the weekend – you ought to be able to be civil for that long -"

"Well fuck me Betty." He laughs out loud and it's mostly relief. "He really does move fast."

Not so secretly thrilled to hear that Doc is off the market. So is she, come to think of it. He's stolen her away, snatched her up. Supremely satisfied with his wedding-coup.

"You're one to talk."

"True_ that._"

Jack, the poor bastard. He'll never have this, will never have _her _- never. Hah. He slouches down on the daybed. A little rattled that she just stands there in front of him, arms crossed looking like she's not done fighting, by a long stretch.

"I must really love you, to put up with this crap - you antisocial prick."

He chokes on his own saliva, because he'll be damned if she didn't just level the playing field. Wrote them a whole new page. Blank, white and pristine.

Knock-out with a single strike. Enough to make him flat-line, right there and then. Soft, dulcet voice, the way a lover will speak, a tone to it that envelops him, caresses his skin, warms him up from within. Couldn't ask for more. Being claimed by her, under her ownership, and there is nothing he'd change about that. He picks out the only three words that matter in that sentence.

_I love you. _

Looking up at her where she stands, all but stomping her feet. Words like honey and nectar. Words to be lapped up, treasured and cradled_. _Words to build a life on.

"Well, I reckon you do. How fucking romantic is that, huh Freckles?"

They go through the food that Ni Luh has brought.

"Hey, what do you know? Mangoes." Her face all sappy, nonsensical joy, possibly mirroring his. He holds up the green fruit. _Mangoes_, the island, sand and love-bites as impossible to run from as the sand-fleas infesting the entire beach camp. And he fucking married her. The girl who'd never stay the night.

"I thought you'd have had enough of those to last you a lifetime."

"Nope. Some things have a sentimental value..." He smirks, and jams a piece of succulent mango between her open lips, making the juice drip down her chin. Immediately proceeding to cut another bit off, popping it into his own mouth.

"You feeling sentimental, James?"

"Yep, I reckon I am." A loud slurp, licking his lips. He shakes his hair back and leans in. _Kisses her._ A sweet sticky mango kiss that shuts her up as effectively as if he'd sewn her mouth closed. Only, he doesn't let her close it, his tongue greedy. The sweetness of the fruit merging with her tangy heat. Discovers a craving he didn't know he had.

They remain there for a long time, slouching around as the air grows cooler. He peels them another mango, and another. And they lie side by side, faces turned towards one another. Eating. Juice making fingers sticky and mouths stinging a little from the chillies. _Him and her._ All that matters is here. This simple happiness, mangoes, chilli and her mouth on his.

Spicy, sweet and so damn tender.

And right there slouching on the daybed with her, he thinks if he were to give a vow it would be to promise her gentleness. From here on, in their home wherever that ends up to be – there will be no need to watch your back. There will be no need to startle at hard heels against a floor or duck under the uncertainty of someone's anger. No fists will fly here, no unkind words. He'll show her.

_Tender_ - that's how he'll be.

...

She'll do little things that make him choke up.

And he'd never thought she had this in her. A new softness to her, how she'll come by when he's sitting around. Her fingers sweeping his neck, his cheek or arm. Any bare skin she can find. The love flows easily now, without second thought. She doesn't calculate her moves, doesn't hesitate. And it's fucking near perfect.

How she'll make space right next to him, even if they have the whole daybed. Tags along after him through the house. Almost as if the roles have been switched.

This new Kate is baffling to him. Considering their history, how she has always been, balking at all things intimate. It's like the dam has burst. So much emotion, and she doesn't know what to do with them, how to spend them.

She reminds him of an affectionate puppy. The type that wants, no_, needs_ to put its head on his lap, must be scratched behind the ears to be calmed.

And he tries his best to shield her from all things negative. They struggle with the resort at first. Waste a lot of money on the wrong contractors, have to fight with the local authorities for their permit. But at home he betrays nothing of that. He builds a wall around her. Plays the buffoon, pretends to be careless and laid-back. Doing his all to keep her mind off the kid, off the future.

To be honest, he tries keeping Jack as far from her as he possibly can too.

He's a negative influence if Sawyer's ever seen one. It's especially evident at that first visit, when he pays them a weekend visit, flying in from Singapore. He stays at the resort, not at their little house of course. That bastard is far too practical, talks about things that Sawyer knows she can't handle. _Not now._ Comes waving with a goddamn birth-plan when she doesn't even believe there ever will be a birth. She refuses to talk about it, and _hell_, who's he to force her?

So he covers it all with lovers' games. Puts on a show for her. But he reckons it's worth it and he'd sworn to himself he'd watch out for her from there on. That he'd make her happy.

They cling to sex in a way that probably isn't entirely healthy. Making love while the ceiling fan whirs - the only thing that's concrete.

They overdo it for sure. The fuse is short and it doesn't lead to anger but to clothes being kissed away, the rush of eager hands. The physical, the one thing they can define. Soothing in its tangibility, in a way that the rest isn't.

She seems to be unable to cope with separation. And he's the same. So they find comfort in each other, sleeping like one, all tangled. A bond between them that can't be verbalized, a desperation fusing them together.

...

He waits for it to blow up, for one of them to do something stupid, hurt the other. But they are slowly learning too. Moving on instincts. Treading carefully, handling one another with kiddy gloves. Tender touches and light words.

He tries to let her take the lead, show him the pace, with everything. Baby talk is off the table and he knows she tries to bury her anxieties in him, in sex. The rhythm she chooses demanding. How she'll dive on him, that aggressiveness when she needs to work her frustrations out. Taking them out on him in that intensely physical way she's got. But he can deal with that. Lets her do it her way.

And he wonders how long the sweetness could possibly last, her belly inflating by the day. Or so it seems.

...

She must be around seven months when it happens.

It's early morning, another one of those morning when she reaches for him. And he responds as if on cue. Waking up to her shaping herself around him. Soon she's astride him, moving slowly and the way she tightens he knows she's near. Lies there and just watches her. _God. _If he'd known all those years ago, at the beginning – how she would chose him. How she'd make him hers, in this unreserved, absolute way, he could have saved himself a whole lot of fretting.

Could have spared him years of resenting Jack.

He lies there enjoying the sight of the distended belly and the astonishing shape of her breasts resting on it, swollen and glistening with sweat in the already sweltering morning air.

Becomes aware of something wet on his chest as she leans forward, eyes squeezed shut.

"Damn, baby-girl... I reckon - you've sprung a leak."

Her eyes flicking open, round and so frightened he cools off almost instantly. As if flicking a switch.

"No... no, no, no." She looks from the watery whitish liquid dripping to his torso.

_Milk. _

"That... is that normal? _That _coming out of you there – this early?"

He's a frigging oaf, but he knows nothing about women and babies. Knows absolutely zero about pregnancies. Her hand not pressed against her breasts but her lower abdomen as she heaves herself off him and curls up on her side, knees drawn up.

"Say something." He sits up, wiping his chest with his fingers. It feels sticky. "You're scaring me witless, Freckles. You alright... is this okay?"

"I think... it might be... contractions."

She is terror-stricken. He can see it in her shoulders, in the tautness in her neck. That hard muscle in her cheek - that's fear.

"Oh, fuck," he says not knowing exactly what that means, only that it can't be good. A surge of guilt, making him want to knock his head against the wall. He should have known better. Should have stopped this. Surely it's not normal to go at it like they've been doing the last four weeks. Not in her condition. "Does it hurt? Must be better leaking from there than downstairs right?"

Milk still trickling and he grabs his shirt, pressing it against her. Something too intimate, too private about it.

"I _don't _know," voice sharp with tension.

"How the hell, can't you know?"

He's moron. Crap, he's not cut out for this. He knows _nothing_. Nothing. Should have read a frigging book or something. He doesn't even dare to ask her if she thinks she's losing the little nipper. Truthfully, he can't let his own thoughts go there.

He gets up and digs up his newly purchased cell phone. Pacing back and forward on the floor, dialing Jack in Singapore. He needs to talk to someone. Or she can talk to him. Comes back to the bed and sits down beside her, where she lies looking pale and terrified. He puts a hand on her hip. Needs to feel her there, solid – real.

Jack answers almost immediately and hell, he can't be bothered with the pleasantries.

"Doc... something ain't right here..." He turns to her, tries to offer her the phone. "You wanna' talk to him directly, Freckles?"

But she's just clutching her belly and shaking her head on the pillow. Lying there stark naked and vulnerable. He pulls a sheet over her hips. Jack waits for him to explain.

"Says she has contractions... and well, she leaked some milk stuff from the upstairs section."

He's breaking out into cold sweat as his own words. A foreboding that probably has no logical explanation.

"Was she doing anything strenuous?"

Dumb question, and he's too anxious to be nice.

"She wadn't climbing any stair masters or lugging around any logs if that's what you're thinking... We were. Well, you know. What people do."

"Maybe it's time to lay off her, James." There is no mistaking the venom in Jack's voice. Well fuck it. Jack _knows_ her. He must know what she's like. That she is the one not laying off the goodies, takes him when she feels like it. But then again, maybe it was never like that with Doc. He's feels both smug about this realization and ashamed he's even thinking of it right now. "Give it a rest, alright?"

He turns around, holding his hand around the phone, hissing into it:

"Well, Doc - I'm a shithead but I ain't a heartless fuckwad. – And besides, it ain't your business, so just tell me what we do now for Pete's sake. She's properly spooked. And frankly, so am I."

"Let me talk to her."

And this time he doesn't ask her. Just hands her the phone. Jack comes through as he always does. Gets some hotshot ladies' Doc on line.

It calms her down some but not him. He lies down next to her, face to face. His heart racing, his palms clammy. _Shit. Shit_. So many things can go wrong and he is useless. He can't do _bullcrap_ to help her out. He should at least have read a frigging book. How hard is that to do?

She bites her lip, eyes fastened on his face. Hand still clutched to her stomach. He takes it. Takes her fingers in his, pushing in between them. Like a thief, scared to lose something not rightfully his. A stolen happiness he doesn't deserve.

"So what do we do, Freckles? You've gotta' rest or something?"

"No. Says contractions are normal at this stage... and the milk thing well it goes with the... well, what we were doing... and..."

"So no more funny business, baby-cakes. No more. We'll take it easy, alright? Chill out a bit."

"She said we can still... it's not..."

"Well I ain't taking risks. - I tell you, I won't have Jackass whopping my ass if this happens again. I'm taking sex off the table – indefinitely."

"As you wish," she says as if she doesn't care at all. And they lie there for the longest time. Just looking at one another. An anxiety they pretend isn't present. Happiness just borrowed, taken for a test-spin which has turned into a joy-ride.

They are just thieves, and they know it. They keep a watchful vigil, only forgetting themselves when clothes come off and their hands entwine.

Suspicious of happiness, wary and inexperienced. What they are, something frail, limping on spindly legs.

...

That night she comes to bed in a t-shirt and shorts and it rattles him. Maybe it's the memory of domesticity with Juliet. The calm, undemanding relationship, falling asleep with a book. Not the constant insistent needing, wanting, having to have.

"That ain't the way we roll, girl," he says watching her get in on her side and stay on it. Maybe he's immature. But he can't handle this. The clothes, the distance they symbolize – freak him out.

Wants the primitive creature comfort he has with her. Something simple.

"What? - You said we're not -. Well, this was _your_ idea."

"That don't mean we'll wear a lot of crap to bed and sleep in separate quarters, Freckles." He scoots over, because hell, he can't stand it. Like a security blanket. That's how it is. Needs her flush against him, regardless. "There ain't no way around it. Just show me some skin, Sugarpops."

Like melting a glacier, how she laughs her snorting laughter and loosens up while he makes a fuss over her, undressing her so clumsily he punches her nose with his elbow. Not satisfied until she lies there in absolutely nothing.

"Happy now?" she says, her stomach solid against his. "You're sure you can sleep like this."

Her fingers between his, raised above their heads. _This_. This is how they were meant to be. The only way they can be.

"This man has got some self-control, darling. It's _you,_ I'm worried about."

"I can feel your 'self-control', buddy and I'm not all that impressed."

"Yeah well, some parts are slower catching on than others."

Domestic bliss. And _fuck_, it's beautiful.

Going from being the loneliest man in the world to being this weird constellation of different parts, a little rinky-dink trinity of their very own. Like travelers in the great unknown, badly prepped, not packed, not experienced enough for this journey.

They'll improvise, he thinks.

If there is anything they're good at, it's making decisions at a neck-breaking speed when all hangs in the air. They'll find a way.

…

The non-sex thing hobbles along, not entirely successfully. And could anyone blame him, the way she is? Always on and around him, rubbing up, stroking, caressing. Impossible to ignore. Won't let him breathe in peace.

But they find a half-happy medium, where they make out like zit-faced teens and stop just short of her climaxing. That's what scares her. Says it feels like she's going to drop the... whatever. She won't mention the kid, but he knows she's afraid the whole sex business will start labor.

The sex dreams and the spontaneous fun that comes with being honked up on pregnancy hormones becomes something frightening from then on. She'll wake up from them with a guily look, as if she'd caused them herself. Her legs squeezed together tightly. And hell, it bums him out, how she still has to be scared every single frigging day. How she beats herself up over a little itty-bitty innocent thing she has no control over.

But he figures it'll be alright, once the little freak is out and safely hatched so to say.

...

Those last couple of months.

How they struggle trying to find their way, trying to settle in. Some things are easy, like the touching, the sleeping like an octopus, all wrapped up. But then there is the old crap, things they can never turn their back on.

The fact that they don't really know how to create a home, how to be a family. Inexpert and raw, fumbling with the basic concept of existing together.

_Home._

The word is like a mirage. A myth. Something they trundle along towards, dilly-dallying on the way because both of them are distrustful and not sure there is such a thing to be had._ Still, _it beckons them, calls for them They want to believe in it so badly – perhaps she more than he.

She grows restless, what with him away at the resort all day long. Wants some 'adventure' he reckons. And it scares him. The thought of her doing something reckless in pure boredom.

_The fishing boat._ It'd been her idea. He'd been busy getting the resort up and functioning and thought her busy enough just hoisting around that big belly.

Claire had finally decided to join Miles there too. And he'd seen the whole idea eating Kate up. The fact that she had to stay out of the way, be careful lest one of the guests might recognize her. Had tried to figure something out to keep her on her toes. But before he knew it, she'd decided to sink a little money into the local fishermen's business. Madness of course. Pregnant to the bursting point she'd waddled on board.

He watches her from the shore. She's standing next to a group of fishermen, smiling, clearly laughing _with_ them. He knows that look, the flirting, the batting words back and forward. A little tomboy, tummy like Santa and feet in sandals. A sort of tunic to her thighs. White, thin cotton. Sleeves all the way down to her hands.

Her hair is tied up, gathered at the nape of her neck. Hot damn, she's beautiful. Looking like something soft and fruity, something that might melt on your tongue but not without a little twang of attitude.

One of the men pushes a basket on her. It's large, and from the way he passes it on he can't imagine how she's going to carry it. He hurries towards her. Will take it from her amid protests, he already knows it. He frets about her and she pretends to be pissed about it. That's there latest script. That's how they are now.

He is still freaking scared she'll take a plunge one of these days. But she's made it work, helped the crew invest in new nets. Simple stuff. Figures it'll come in handy, later when the resort is up and running and more guests start dropping in. A fresh supply of seafood.

She comes toddling on towards him. Smiling like a child, holding up the basket full of some kind of mussels.

"You ain't gonna' eat that crap, darn it," he says taking it from her.

Watching as her smile turns into a dark defiant frown. Because by now he's had Jack send him a dozen stupid 'What to expect when you're expecting' books and it has ruined his life. Knowledge is power – that's a load of bull and he wishes he could have his ignorance right back. He'd pay good money for it too.

Now he worries about everything. What she eats, if she sleeps, how much water she gets. Diseases, blood-pressure, vitamins, breech, germs – everything. It's frigging exhausting. And all the more tiresome because she won't touch the books with a six foot pole.

That evening, he does her shot. He looks for a new location morning and evening, hating himself for the bummer-shots that flare out in large purple bruisers. Finally finds a spot of skin beneath her shoulder blade.

"It's gonna' happen, girl. You can shut your eyes and pretend it's raining, but that kid will be here any moment now and you're in so much denial I –"

"You know nothing about it." That's her answer when he tramples in on this territory. She slams the door in his face. So terrified of losing the kid she can't allow herself to think beyond the next day, the next hour. And it's true. He knows nothing of this. How it feels to be her.

Still. It pisses him off. He's invested too. As much as he possibly could be. Though truth be told, it's still her that he cares for. The kid benefiting from it by default.

"You know, we could go to Ambon. Stay there until it's here. I'd feel -"

"I can't. I won't. " And that's the end of that discussion.

It has to do with that boy she lost, he figures as much. So he holds his breath and hopes he has enough hope for the both of them. Hell, he even prays sometimes – even though he doesn't really believe. Prays the little bugger makes it out in one piece.

And then he begins writing his letter.

As a sort of penance, trying to buy God's sympathy. A belief so diffuse he can't put it in words. Maybe if something happens to this kid, it'll be because he did nothing for his others. Absolutely nothing. So, he writes page up and page down. In cheap school books with pictures of Transformers and Disney princesses on the covers. She hovers around him, pretending not to snoop.

"I'm putting my sins down in print. Now, get out of my hair, woman – I'm only on 1986."

"You've filled fourteen notebooks already. How much is there to tell?"

"Enough to put me away for a hell of a long time. Let's hope Cassie's kid ain't the vengeful type."

"I hope you've censored it."

"Yeah, well. _No. _What are you gonna' do? Cassie said to write the frigging truth, and that's what it is. She better keep them under lock until her kid turns eighteen. "

"_Her_ kid." Something about the prickly tone startles him. He looks up to find her jaw at a sharp angle.

"What...? Yeah, _her _kid."

"She's yours too. She is _your_ daughter, James."

It jars his ears to hear it. The guilt too overwhelming, he needs to keep it away. Has no yearning to make its acquaintance.

"That letter won't erase what you did, James. It won't make Clementine any less your daughter," she says and then she frigging leaves him there with that to stew on.

He has a feeling that is going to be one of those things they'll always fight about.

...

"Hey, Freckles – come on out here."

She hears him call for her from outside and she stumbles as she takes the steps too fast. Has to catch her breath, holding onto the doorway before she exits, not wanting him to see her like that and start nagging about taking it easy. Because she can't. Her nerves twist and flicker, never letting her relax. The fear so constant, she knows nothing else. But she fakes it. As well as she can.

He's standing beneath the porch, dirty and sweaty, grinning like he's just won the damn lottery. Holding a tree.

A large tree with plastic wrapped around its roots. It isn't enormous, but big enough to make her marvel at how he has managed to bring it up the hill. Using sheer stubbornness probably, like everything else he does.

"What... What's that for?"

"It's a tree, Pumpkin."

"I can _see_ that."

"Yeah, well – here it is. Where the hell do you want it?"

_Polite as usual_. She has no idea what made him think she needed another tree. They live on the brink of the jungle as it is and have to ward off its expansion with machetes.

It's a frangipani tree. It reminds her of that courtyard back in Bali, and she realizes that maybe he's trying to do something nice. Perhaps he's – _No._ She doesn't get it.

He shakes his hair back and gives her a pointed look as if she's just hurt his feelings with her lack of enthusiasm. So she takes a pew on the porch step. Wants to see what the heck he gets up to. He goes and get's a shovel and starts digging a hole right in front of the stairs.

"How very convenient. Now we can runs straight into a tree every time we get off the porch."

He sulks, just keeps digging. Perspiration spreading, staining his shirt dark, as he fumbles, trying to fit the tree into the hole, forced to repeat the digging a few more times before it's deep enough. He picks up a little pocket knife from his denims and starts carving into the bark on the other side. Making it impossible for her to see what he's up too.

"What are you writing?"

"_James _was here. What the hell do you think?"

"It better not be J heart K," she says and he glowers up at her for daring to make fun of him. Not that kind of moment.

"Well, if you're done mocking, I've got some washing up to do."

Stomps up the steps beside her and disappears into the house. Just like that. Sensitive son of a bitch. She's the one dealing with hormones and stuff and he's the acting like a toddler.

But she can't help it. Needs to see what the hell he spent five minutes painstakingly etching into that poor tree. She gets up with a heavy grip on the ledge, gets down and rounds the trunk.

And he wasn't lying.

It says - _'James was here'_ - running upwards.

And the year. Nothing else. There is a part of her that lets go - at that very moment.

Him. The emotional equivalent of Rain man. And then he goes and solves the unsolvable equation. Him, her, a loss that wasn't really a loss, mourning a nobody, a child that never was. And just like that, with a flick of a knife, he has carved their boy into existence. Unwanted, denied – no more. _Real_.

She walks in on him, washing his neck, splashing water on his armpits. He twists his neck to look at her in the doorway. Sheepish, unsure of her reaction.

"Thank you."

The layers of man behind the surface. The contradictions of insecurity and strength. How he is more resilient, more steadfast than she'd ever thought. And he says nothing for a while. Just stands there, water dripping from his skin. She feels it then. How he can see the parts she can't even bear to look at.

"It wasn't nothing. You ain't got to thank me, Freckles."

After that, every time she passes that tree, she runs her fingertips over the bark. And it's as much about the little boy as it is about him. The other James.

...

The freak's arrival realigns all he's ever believed, all he thought they were.

The kid comes early, they don't risk the trip to the mainland so the whole affair happens on site, at a little dinky village clinic. Just as she wanted. And he wishes he could say it was the best day of his life but hell. He's never been so petrified as a grown man.

He is not allowed in the room and he is frigging relieved because hell, he doesn't think he could stand by watching her in pain. It's enough to have to listen and still he reckons she holds back, tries to bite back the pain.

The midwife's assistant comes out, touching his shoulder where he sits waiting on a torturous plastic chair.

"Udah." It's done. That's all she says and his feet want to run away. Leave it all behind.

And like that, there is a whole new dimension to fear. Like a curtain being pulled back, revealing _her _world. The realization that he has something worth holding onto. Something he cannot afford to lose.

A terror so deep it can't be vocalized.

He's left reeling. Tormented by this new insight. This is how it will be. The responsibility weighing a ton and it crosses his mind to run.

He's let in after the deal is over. A group of local women, and Ni Luh, looking at him as if he's a giraffe who has accidentally found his way into the room. And then instead of a giddy, relieved, happy girl holding a healthy baby boy, she looks like death warmed over. _Listless._ She won't even look at the kid that first day and truth be told, he can't either. he worries about _her_ and she's overwrought, distressed and not in her right mind.

She cries. Silently, sitting in that bed. And he feels so damn alone. Abandoned and furious at her for not toughing it out, for not being able to get a goddamn grip. The little spud is _alive. _He's an ugly little bugger - but as far as Sawyer can tell he's normal. He's got the required set of eyes, fingers and toes. And still. She is distraught and frighteningly illogical.

Keeps asking if the kid is breathing and if he's alright but won't take him in her arms. The nurse or whatever she is, tries ushering him out of there. He's not allowed to stay for more that five minutes, and to tell the truth, he wants to stick his head in the sand and hide. Wants to escape it all. But instead he takes a chair and sits by her bed all frigging day long, refusing to leave. Watching with growing exasperation how the women try to help Kate nurse the little critter and how she looks away, stares at the wall. Distancing herself. As if she can't accept that this is happening. Holding the kid as if it's a loaf of bread.

And _fuck_, those first days are hard.

She's more like an animal than a woman, even bares her teeth at him when he tries to make her take the kid. And he worries that she has lost it completely. Wondering how the hell he is supposed to do it all alone.

…

He brings them home, heart in throat, scared out of his mind. How the hell is he going to manage? He can't put the poor sucker on the tit _for_ her.

He can't force her to love the kid.

He has to grind his teeth not to scream at her. His own nerves getting to him. She goes to bed and stays there. The kid meowing from its basket. He tries rocking him. But his flat hard chest clearly isn't what the poor bastard wants.

Ni Luh comes to the rescue. She ousts him out of his own bedroom and moves right in with Kate. _And what do you know_? Before the evening falls, little clever-boots comes dragging him by the shirt-sleeve to peep though the crack of the door. And there they are, his goddamn woman, boobs white, blue veined and enormous and that little freak sucking away like nobody's business.

"Always difficult in the beginning," she whispers and gives him a maternal pat on the cheek. "It get better, you see. Give time."

And it does. Christ, does it get better after that.

Ni Luh spends that first week babying Kate, and he reckons she needs something he ain't able to give her. A mother-figure, someone who can sponge up the panic, make it more manageable. What's certain is that once she's gone he tries to step into Lulu's tiny shoes. He fusses over her like a hen over a baby-chick. He hardly glances at the kid, it's not really his business yet.

But _she _is.

He grows to love her in a different way, these first anxious weeks. He worries like he's never worried before. It's hard to be his old flippant self and hell _yeah_, he misses the man he used to be. Mourns the freedom of not having anything or anyone to fret about.

"Eat up, Freckles. I ain't slaving over the pot to see you chuck it all in the bin," he grumbles and she bites her jaws together and eats with a rebellious glare on him, the whole time.

_You're not my daddy_ – as loud and clear as if she'd actually said the words. Miles makes fun of them and their weird dynamics. Sawyer bets the sonofabitch is glad he's not in his shoes, parenting a grown woman.

It's not forever though. Ni Luh was right of course. It gets better and she snatches back her dignity little by little starting with a snide:

"I can dress myself you know." Like a three year old, trying to establish her independence.

"Prove it."

Soon it's everything. _I can feed myself. I can bathe myself. I can do the damn dishes. _It's funny, he'd never expected he'd be fighting some woman about getting to cook for her.

But that's the thing. Their life together turns everything he's ever believed up side down. And much of it in a good way. He keeps waiting for a load of bricks to hit them. The sky is too blue, the frail happiness too unblemished. The waking up every morning, expectant in that way he'd been about his birthday as a kid. Works at the resort all day and he has butterflies, honest to god fluttering little butterflies when he stalks up on their porch. Eager to see them.

He keeps thinking it must be some trick. It just can't be this simple. He must have missed something. Some unforeseen danger lurking beyond the next corner.

…

He'd expected the spud to be a noisy little bastard. Everyone knows babies cry like banshees. And he waits for it, walking with a colicky wailing baby all night long, like in the movies. Waits for the chaos, kid not settling down, wanting to chuck the thing out of a window. But the moment never comes.

Placid and frighteningly quiet. Butternut-mellow, purring and smacking his gums contentedly – that's the rowdiest he gets. He barely opens his eyes those first weeks. As if he's Gandhi, someone old and wise and Buddha-like. Always at the tit. Morning, day and night, suckling constantly – content and fatter than a pork chop. Skin a weird pale tone, pink as if he's been smacked around.

They're in awe of him. Foreign, alien creature dropped in their lap.

And fuck knows where he got it from, the laidback personality, fruit of the loins of two of the most high-strung wrecks on the planet. They hardly hear a squeak from the kid those first weeks and it worries him. _Worries him to no end._ The thing might whimper like a damn kitten at the most. And he starts thinking, what if. What if the the kid isn't right? He knows she'd never listen if he said so, but what if the kid is soft in the head, mute or something?

But Sawyer soon has freak-boy all sassed out.

And it isn't strange. Damn it, he barely has time to clip with those narrow, oriental eyes before she's there, boobs full and ready to feed, super-sonic fast. No need to ever cry in casa del Ford. He just doesn't get the opportunity. He's a permanent fixture in her arms nowadays. Day and night. A boob in that little toothless mouth before he can even yawn. No wonder the kid is fat. Like a pudgy little piglet.

_But loved. _

Christ, how she loves him. It almost frightens him. Everything about their little claustrophobic twosome scares him. How she provides an all-encompassing force field around the kid. All. Of. The. Time. - He's pretty much overdosed on luck with that kind of Mama.

How she's warily watching him every darn second as if she's worried he'll be snatched away. _Her._ How she lies in bed all night long refusing to sleep, keeping watch when she thinks he doesn't see. Can sense it in the rigid nerves along her neck when he strokes her there. She fears the kid will vanish into thin air. Fears he'll stop breathing, his heart will stop beating.

"The stork ain't coming back for refunds, Freckles. You can put him down a minute, you know." He tries to joke about it, wants to borrow her from the little freak for two red seconds damn it.

_But that's a mistake. _

She gets that tight-lipped expression and he'll be damned if she doesn't take a quick glance of the sky just in case. Not something she's ready to smile about.

Has him glued to her boob around the clock.

Can't say he minds it, except for the part that it's a buffer between them and he wants, no, _needs _more of her than she can give right now. And he'd be lying if he said isn't feeling left out and excluded by their intense little twosome.

Still, in spite of the selfish yearning to have her back, he likes her like that. A sight for sore eyes. Not for his benefit no more, but hell, he loves to watch her feed that thing. All weirdly Madonna-like, touching the crown of that round skull as if it's a crystal ball and might tell her future too. Looking like she's right where she wants to be. As if she finally belongs. She'll sit on the bed, in only her underwear. All soft curves and milky white serenity.

Her stomach a little softer, stretched out after the little fat piggy elbowed his way through there. Her breasts have popped out like honeydew melons. Swollen and easily the size of the kid's head. Knows they'll lose that succulent fullness sooner or later, will never go back to the girlish high perkiness.

But he enjoys that part too. How _he _has marked her physically, made such a visible change come about. A fierce possessive when he watches her on the sly. That honeyed voice she uses with the kid, making the hair on his arms stand up and his toes curl.

She guards the kid like a pot of gold. He doesn't stand a chance the way she hogs the little freak, hoarding him as if he were the last oil-deposit on earth and she's waiting for a good offer from OPEC. Her and that kid. Inseparable until he forces a wedge between them.

_Hell_, the babe is over a month before he get to lay a damn finger on him. That's when he decides to take matters in his own hands.

She's burping the lump when he swoops by and grabs the little piece of lard.

_And Christ_.

To be honest, he hasn't had much of paternal feelings or any feelings at all prior to that. Most of his emotions focused at her. But the weight in his arms, the sleepy snuggling against his throat. The neck like one of those rubber-duckies, an altogether unreliable construction. He steps out onto the porch with her fretting after him, tucking her boobs in.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Hitting the bar-scene. What do you think?"

Is about to ask her to relax for God's sake, let up a little on the communist-style state control, monopolizing him twenty four seven. But he understands it too. How the kid isn't real to her yet. She doesn't trust happiness. Looks at it squinty-eyed, expecting it to fuck up.

But he doesn't give the kid back. Not right away.

It's obvious that if he wants the smallest part of the little furballs upbringing, he's going to have to fight his way to it, tooth and nail.

Her hand caressing, always smoothing over an arm, the head, a little fat foot. Physical, in a way that almost creeps him out. And oddly so with him too. No sex at the beginning and hell, he gets it. She ain't in the shape for it. But the touching, always sneaking up. Rubbing her cheek against his arm, breathing down his neck. Affectionate, non-sexual, absolutely frigging mind-blowingly sweet.

_Hormones._ He thinks. Plenty of big old mama-hormones that chafe off the sharp edges, make her love everything and everyone. Make her burst out crying at the drop of a hat too. Run out of sugar; _cry_. Some animal chews up her papaya tree; big fat tears. Kid smiles for the first time; stunned tears.

_Like a different woman._

The rough husk, her casing peeled off and he can see her, exposed in her pink, thin-skinned defenselessness for the first time. Feels sorry for her, protective. An overwhelming need to shield her from all the world's evil, because he knows right now, she's powerless.

Tries to be a man. A real, honest to God, manly-man, around her. He's gruff with the boy, grumbles and puts on an exaggerated swagger. Wants her to feel taken care of. Carries baskets of groceries up the hill, paints the whole damn house, fixes the roof. Waits patiently for her to claim him back. More than sex, he waits for her to look at him and want him again. To feel the way he does.

And when she finally comes back to him, one night leading him out on the porch with an expectant grin, he thinks that _– fuck it_. She still needs him. Needs him to love the apprehension away, to keep the demons far from her.

His patience pays off in a spectacular manner.

And though the desire for her has lost that urgent heart-crushing pace, it sure isn't gone. A steady ever-present pulse, always there but less pressing. A security in knowing that she won't be gone in the morning. It makes him able to handle those days of distance, when she can't be touched – can't be close.

They're rare nowadays, far in between.

That's more thanks to the little freak, who has a way of cutting them short, breaking down barriers. Yeti-boy doesn't allow her pulling back for long, will demand she takes him in her arms with that soft purr he's got. It doesn't take more than that.

...

The kid is eight weeks old when she says he can't keep calling him _'little freak_'. They have to come to an agreement.

They fight about the name. They fight for days and nights. They grumble, sulk, pout and bicker bitterly. Finally she has enough. Says that the day he pushes six pounds of flesh through his hooha, he'll get to name it.

That pretty much settles it.

_Hugo._

Poor sucker. A name to make you retch. Hugo _frigging _Ford. He tells her it sounds like the fakest, phoniest alias he's ever heard. Like a sleazy, two-dollar pimp. Yeah, the kid's got his work cut out for him. Not to mention the weight problem – the lard-ball. Well _hell_, he's not Hurley's namesake for nothing. They might as well accept it. He won't be no ladies' man, that's for sure. Not like that, drooling like a leaky faucet.

"You ain't gotta' follow in your old man's foot step Yeti-boy. Just do your thing, seems Hurley-boy made a pretty good living for himself, just being chubby and lucky. Maybe you can run a fried chicken franchise."

He's going to need luck, that's for sure. Clueless, amateur parents who fumble around in the dark, not an inkling of how this ought to be done. This child-rearing stiff. Still, he rocks him back and forward, as if he's always known how to do this.

"Yeah that's right. Nice an' easy. Don't wanna' wake up your Mama."

He glances over at the bed where she lies, dressed in nothing but her underwear. A pair of stark white boy shorts. Her breasts full and squashed between her arms where she lies on her side. No longer an armadillo.

And it's amazing to him, how two people with so much ugly baggage can come together and not make one another miserable. The way she loves the two of them, Yeti boy and him. He'd never thought it possible. He comes a distant second, that's for sure. And he's alright with that. It's as it should be.

She's a Mama now. Mind-boggling as it is.

"If you let your Mama sleep for two seconds straight, she might wake up feeling pretty darn generous. Yup. It's been known to happen."

"If you shut up for two seconds I wouldn't have to wake up at all," she bitches from deep under the pillow.

"Touchy. Come here baby-girl, let's see if young Hugo's got freckles under all the fur."

It's true, the little freak has dark fuzz covering his entire backside, and funny squinting little pig-eyes if he ever opens them. Something vaguely oriental about the kid. And if he wasn't so damn sure Danan was as gay as they come, he'd have been pretty darn suspicious. Not that he'd ever say anything to her.

"He hasn't got fur."

"Oh yeah? Wake up and smell the hairballs darling. _This_ here... I ain't so sure they didn't switch him at the Orangutan sanctuary. Bet there is a little freckled, hairless skinny thing climbing trees over there right now."

"I'm trying to sleep."

He rocks the little freak some more. He might be a funny little thing but hell, to hold his warm weight in arms. He doesn't mind it all that much. And miracles of miracles, without a tit in his mouth, the pearly, thin eyelids flutter closed. Sawyer hardly dares to breathe, jostling over to poke at Kate there in the bed. Uses a foot to kick the corner of the bed-frame.

"Look! Look what I did! No boob and he's sleeping like a fucking baby."

"Schh... don't wake him up – and he _is _a baby," she groans.

"Nah, I won't wake him. I've got this." Puts him down in his rattan cot. The cot that he barely ever sees the inside of. Sheds clothes on his way over to the bed. A glimmer of play and sunshine in those her eyes, following his every move. "I can be quiet. Wanna' see how quiet I can be."

"Yeah. Yeah, I don't believe it. Show me."

"Just watch and learn little Darling."

He wakes up before Sawyer has achieved anything notable. He seriously has to change his routine. Not that she complains. They take the hairy kid and put him in between them. And sure, he'd have wanted sex, but this is pretty darn fine with him too.

The two of them, eying the kid like a pile of loot. Trying to wrap their brain around the magnitude of what they've gotten away with. How they've managed to get their grubby hands on such a priceless treasure.

Funny-looking as hell. But priceless.

...

She can't believe he is here.

As if she's just pulling a complicated con, impersonating a mother. Scared someone will find out and take him away. Like a thief with a bad conscience.

She hasn't deserved this. It's too much and she expects there to be a huge price to pay along the way. Happiness doesn't ever last. She knows that much. Sooner or later the pendulum swings back and hits you in the head.

So she lies there hour after hour, holding a silent vigil. Pretending to Sawyer to be sleeping while she keeps her quiet guard. Lying like they always do, her back against his chest, tightly packed as if their bed isn't big enough for two persons and a tiny baby.

They have worked out a system for this. Every night, he'll arrange their bodies so that maximum amount of skin meets skin. He'll sweep her hair up and away so that he can nestle into the crook of her neck. His mouth breathing calmly, in out against her skin. His arm heavy over her waist, hand flat just beneath her breasts. His thighs against her buttocks, and he will shuffle around, pull at her until it's just so.

You couldn't slide a sheet of paper between them if you wanted. The room is hot although they have the windows wide open. Mosquito netting the only thing shielding them. The stuffy, humid heat that not even the most efficient ceiling fan can cool down. Still. That's what they need.

"Hey Freckles, he ain't gonna' go nowhere. Ain't nobody gonna' steal him from you."

She wants to say; '_but what if?' _How the hell does he know? There are no guarantees, no one with the power to say this or that person has earned some happiness after the crap lives they've had. And she certainly isn't worthy of any of this.

The little boy.

_Mine_, she thinks, put that's not true. It's _she_ who belongs to him, and he owns Sawyer's sorry ass as well.

Her hand on him. Can't do it any other way. Impossible. This is part of the arrangement, never breaking the contact. Her hand, or if she's feeling brave, her fingertips on his chest where he sleeps on his back, dressed only in a diaper, arms thrown over his head in abandon.

Are all babies beautiful? She really couldn't say. She isn't even sure hers is. Just knows he's powerful. Omnipotent.

An undeniable force and she'd never imagined it'd be like that. How something so small can be almighty, though he doesn't even know it yet. How a creature can take you over, make you someone different. So small, so seemingly insignificant and still he changes the molecular structure of who she is. Who she is with James. Her place in the world.

She belongs now. To _him_.

Her mother's inability to love doesn't matters now. The relief in finding that she is not her mother. That she has the ability to love her child so much it chokes her, turns her into an insomniac. Tears her apart.

And he lies there, looking very innocent indeed.

Doesn't know that her whole world hangs on him on whether he breathes or not. Cheeks puffed up in sleep, fists opening, closing. The quivering of eyelids, and lips like raspberry sauce. Wet little drooling mouth. Kisses it often enough, sloppily, smelling the sweet milky sourness of his breath. Vanilla.

Hers. And his. Who'd have though, James would turn out to be the steady knave keeping it all together. Who'd have thought he'd be such a calming influence.

"Did you hear me Princess? He ain't gonna' run off and join the circus." Sawyer whisper in her ear, always the same. Every night. And she is amazed he doesn't lose his cool, doesn't ever throw a fit. Who'd have thought? Sawyer, patience personified.

He knows how she frets, how terrified she is. His reassuring hand on her own naked belly. Their little family unit, raw and naked. This is how they are. Walls torn down now, vulnerable and rickety, just learning how to be. A trio of people needing one another.

"I _know_ that." Though she doesn't. Isn't sure at all. Reason and logic can't reach that deep down.

So she keeps her fingers on him anyway, and Sawyer's are on her. _'You can't know'_, she wants to say. God likes to screw up a good thing, she knows that from experience. So every night, she lies there, eyes stinging with sleep deprivation watching his little chest. How it rises and falls. Puts her hand near his mouth so that she can feel the little puffs of air. Would have brought a mirror to bed if she wasn't afraid Sawyer might make fun of her.

Every night it's the same, her sore eyes on his little chest until exhaustion gets to her and she can't fight it no more. Or until he says enough. _Let's live_.

"Come on, girl. This won't do."

This is part of the ritual too. How he tears her away when it becomes too much. He'll bundle her out of bed. Out on their porch. The one with a view over the indigo blue bay. Waves crashing against the shore in the darkness. The sound of crickets and bats and jungle around them. The sound of life.

He'll pull her down with him on the daybed. The fresh innocence of air-dried sheets The scent of belonging, of being loved, when he takes her. Their place now and only theirs. Not far from the frangipani tree with their other son's name carved into it. He'll close the mosquito netting, and she'll relish in the light wind from the ocean, in his touch. One will merge into the other.

He'll say: "Hush now. Be with me here. _Now._" Rubbing her back with a certainty that takes her breath away. _Him and her_.

She can't resist taking hold of him, bringing her nose into his hair, inhaling his smell. _Don't ever leave. Don't go. _The overpowering need to sniff him, to taste and touch. To verify, make sure he's real. Not some dream. He doesn't wear jumpsuits and live in a little yellow house in Dharmaville with a beautiful blonde woman. There is no need for her to watch him from afar, her throat raw with regret. No need, because he's here. And he's _hers_.

Balmy like the night. His rough, awkward love, soothing her.

He won't tell her that he loves her or any of those things. Will caress her clothes off, strip her down to nothing but naked skin. Kissing her, smoothing big warm hands all over. Turning, rolling, molding himself to her. Making love to her languidly, moving unhurriedly, because he's exhausted too.

Coming together in the laziest possible way. Just the feeling of him inside of her. His weight, anchoring her to this world, his world. Where all is well and no babies ever die.

And for a short moment she forgets about death, stops trying to keep it away and gives herself to life.

_To him._

...

She is supple and sweet – and she surrenders her worries to him. Lays them in his hands.

_For a little while._

And though he's tired and his eyes hang half-open, he forces himself to look at her. Because like this, making love out on the porch – she is only _his_.

Little Hugo can sleep tightly in there, clenching his pudgy fists, dreaming of milk-filled boobs and whatnots. She'll be back to him before he even stirs. Fingers on his pulse, keeping her nightly watch. Safeguarding her gold.

But here, for a few moments, they're not thieves, not anxious guardians of a stolen fortune. It's getting better. They're slowly getting there. Not hopeless. _Who would have though?_

He doesn't know what will become of them. All he knows is that He used to be a unscrupulous bastard. He used to care for no one or nothing. And now, though he isn't all that special, and he sure isn't a good man. He's here and he won't let go.

He's sure the snide villagers are on to them. Bets there are at least a couple of _Peeping Tom's_ hiding in the bushes right now. Drooling at the sight of her pale ass in the moon light, marveling at their lazy-assed love-making. Him soothing her frazzled nerves, loving her qualms and fears away.

_Let them watch,_ he thinks as he falls down by her side. How two people broken beyond repair can heal one another. He searches for her hand, entwining his fingers between hers. A little squeeze. _You and me._

He ain't got nothing to hide. Let them see how it can be.

When a man takes care of what's his. When he leads with a gentle, steady hand and a delicate touch. When what used to ache is wrapped in tenderness, cocooned in compassion. The two of them. No longer at odds, not constantly battling for domination.

A man using all he has got, all he knows. His mouth, his skin and his hands. Lets it all flow, unguardedly, recklessly giving himself. How abrasiveness and rough edges can be loved away. From sandpaper to silk. By sheer stubbornness.

_So let them watch._

How two hard, jagged rocks are slowly shaped, worn soft and smooth by the steady flow of water – like pebbles on a river bank.

_Let them watch – how a man can love._

...

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_**I'll miss this and all of you. **_

_SPECIAL THANK YOU (to everyone and all in no specific order): _

_Sharonlici0us (always checking in, you are gold), Gabism (sweetness in multitude), Maya77(gracias :)), Scotty (five stars and a medal!), Mistressink, Sil1x08 (bellissima, fantastic reviewer), CarolynneRuth (You make me feel shallow because you're comments always have such insight) , HeartInACage(so much love for you for always noticing the little stuff – I will miss your messages), tsol (for being quick and kind and fabulous), dfz, a bunch of nice sweet anonymous (you know who you are!), Delamik (for helping me point out plotholes more than once and for generally just being outrageously kind and generous), Marla's Lost, Judith, Rich, Jack, Belle (for restoring some confidence), Yema (mwah!), Hal9000, Reviewer, Pam, Jessi, Manja, Modernxxmyth, Trapped in A Matchbox, Rain, Gabardine, Saward, Simsi, tianalys, ToorchwoodDoctorWhoFan, Hummelchen, Katey, tiana, scarecrow, June, PCat, layla, heidi, skunji, litme, iNevergirl (for getting so involved in the story), moonstruck (delicious words every time), sroth1979 (with much respect! )Lena, Northstar (grazie mille!), Scarlett, Elodie , halliheart (for picking me up more than once), Phoepsfan( you know I respect your opinion like crazy, you've crazily gracious with your comments). __If I have left anyone out it's not on purpose, just because I'm a forgetful airhead..._


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